PRIVATE G/18238 ERNEST GORDON MAUFE 11TH BATTALION ROYAL WEST KENT REGIMENT. KILLED IN ACTION 6TH OCTOBER 1916


PRIVATE G/18238 ERNEST GORDON MAUFE 11TH BATTALION ROYAL WEST KENT REGIMENT. KILLED IN ACTION 6TH OCTOBER 1916


 Ernest Gordon Maufe was another casualty of the attritional warfare that characterised life in the trenches on the Western Front. The 11th battalion Royal West Kent Regiment where manning the front line near to Mametz Wood on the Somme sector on the 6th October 1916, when 32 year old Ernest was killed.


Ernest had been born in Ilkley and was a member of the wealthy Maufe family who owned and ran the famous Bradford department store Brown, Muff. His father, Charles, was a director of the firm and along with his brothers had changed the family name from Muff to Maufe a few years before the war. Ernest, following in the family trade opened a drapers shop in Guiseley and settled down to life with his wife, Emily, and their young daughter Eileen.

In early 1914 Ernest moved his family to Barnstaple in Devon where he bought a drapers shop called 'Madame Ella' at 71 The High Street. He rapidly became involved in the local life of the town and was well known in both sporting and civic circles. In 1915 he was instrumental in the formation of the Barnstaple Volunteer Training Corps which was a WW1 equivalent of the Home Guard.

On 27th May 1916 Ernest was conscripted into the 28th Reserve Battalion Royal Fusiliers and would have commenced his military training. Posted to France on 30th August 1916 be joined the 17th Battalion Royal Fusiliers but within two weeks was transferred to 11th Battalion Royal West Kent Regiment. In total Ernest served in France for only 38 days before he was killed.

Upon news of her husband’s death Emily and her daughter returned to Ilkley and went to live with her in-laws at Homecroft on Kings Road. After the war she would remarry and move to Harrogate. For the loss of her husband she received a pension of 18/6d a week. 

If Ernest ever had a grave it was subsequently lost. His name should by rights be carved onto one of the panels of the Thiepval Memorial, but it isn't. A clerical error meant that his surname was incorrectly spelled at Mange and then confused with another soldier called Manges in the same battalion. His Victory and War medals were also issued in the same name. The error has now been rectified on the memorial, although, the registration book for Thiepval does make reference to the correct spelling.

Private Ernest Gordon Maufe, is remembered on our war memorial in Ilkley alongside his cousin, Statham Broadbent Maufe who was killed on the 4th July 1916.



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