Ernest James Victor Whatley was born in the spring of 1899, the youngest of three children to George and Clara Whatley. Clara passed away in 1908, and George remarried the following year, to a woman called Sarah. Ernest’s brothers were sixteen years older than him, and so by the time of the 1911 census they had moved out of their father’s home. By that point, Ernest living with his father and stepmother in their house in Bath, Somerset.

Little further information is available about Ernest. With war raging across Europe, he enlisted in the army, but this was not before September 1916, and it is likely that he came of age before joining up.

Private Whatley served in the 1st/7th (Cyclist) Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment, and was based in Suffolk. It is while he was billeted that he was admitted to a hospital in Ipswich, although the cause of his admission is unclear.

Whatever befell Private Whatley, it was to prove his undoing. He passed away in the Ipswich hospital on 9th March 1917, at the tender age of just 18 years old.

Ernest James Victor Whatley’s body was brought back to Somerset for burial. He was laid to rest in St James’ Cemetery, Bath, not far from his mother, Clara.

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