Army
Box, Ernest
Ernest Box
Rank: Private
Regiment: 1st Battalion, Canterbury Regiment, New Zealand Expeditionary Force
Parents: Mr Richard & Mrs Sarah Box
Parent’s Address: ‘Clovelly’, Silverhill Park, St Leonards-on-Sea
Other Info: An article published in the Hastings & St Leonards Observer on 29th July 1916 reads: “We regret to announce that Private Ernest Box, New Zealand Infantry, younger son of Mr & Mrs Richard Box, of Clovelly, Silverhill Park, St Leonards, has been killed in action.
Mr Box went all through the Dardanelles campaign without any serious injury. Mr Box has another son serving in France.”
According to CWGC, Ernest died aged 28 on 9th July 1916. He is remembered at Cite Bonjean Military Cemetery, Armentieres, grave reference II.D.30. He is not named on Hastings War Memorial.
Ernest’s service records can be viewed for free by searching here.
Published: July 1916
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His father was a retired draper at “Clovelly” in the 1901 and 1911 censuses, and died there in 1933.
In the 1901 census Ernest was a 13 year-old, born Clapham, Surrey. The brother referred to as being on military service is possibly Richard Edward, who was age 17 in that household.
In the 1911 census Ernest was at Beckley, Sussex, an auctioneer’s clerk in the household of Ben Thomas Howse, auctioneer.
New Zealand military records show his last civilian address to be the Windsor Hotel, Christchurch.
The Ernest Box shown in such records as an engine driver, Loco Department, Taihape, is almost certainly another man; he married Alice Parkes at Taihape in September 1911, only six months or so after the 1911 census in England, and does not seem to have actually served.