Ernest Henry Aldwinckle

Name	Ernest Henry Aldwinckle
Corps	Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. Eastern Ontario Regiment, No. 2 Company
Rank	Acting Lance Corporal
Service No.	489851
Date/Place of entry	October 1916
Date of death	30 October 1917 Killed in Action
Memorial/Grave	Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial Panel Ten

Ernest Henry Aldwinckle was born in Islington in1887, the sixth child and second son of silk merchant Alfred Othniel Aldwinckle and his wife Emma nee Nordsieck. For an account of this branch of the Aldwinckle family see William Augustus Aldwinckle.

In April 1906 when he was eighteen years old Ernest Henry embarked for Montreal on the ship Parisian. He studied at Guelph Agricultural College at the University of Ontario and was farming in Alberta when war broke out. He got married in 1915 in Lacombe, a city some 75 miles south of Edmonton in central Alberta. His daughter Margaret was born in July of the following year and four months later he joined Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. His daughter later wrote that he had enlisted after his brother Ralph had died on the Somme, and reading that the request for Canadian volunteers was not going well.

Ernest Henry qualified as an instructor in physical training and bayonet fighting and went to France with the Canadian Expeditionary Force in May 1917. The Patricias were part of the Canadian Third Division so were involved in leading the attack at the Battle of Passchendaele Ridge on 26 October that same year. The battle ground was already a quagmire, following weeks of heavy artillery bombardment and torrential rainfall during the summer.

The Third Division was in the centre of the main attack which aimed to capture Meetcheele Ridge. They succeeded, but in doing so three hundred and fifty three men out of the six hundred in the attacking companies were casualties. More than one hundred and fifty were killed or died from their wounds. Among them was Ernest Henry who was declared missing, killed in action on the 30th October.  His body was never recovered and he is commemorated on the Menin Gate at Ypres.

His brother Ralph Aldwinckle was also killed in action. Their elder brother William Augustus Aldwinckle survived.  

Ernest Henry’s daughter Margaret talks about her father’s death at: www.canadashistory.ca/Great-War-Album/About-the-Great-War/Unrest-on-the-homefront/Ernest-Aldwinckle

For an account of the historic extended Aldwinckle family see John Bartholomew Aldwinckle. The following list gives the names of all known servicemen who were descended from Aldwinckles living Cottingham and Middleton in the nineteenth century.

(I also have information on a further five servicemen descended from the Aldwinckle family of Drayton in Leicestershire whose ancestors moved there from Cottingham in the eighteenth century. They are Ernest Aldwinckle, George Harry Aldwinckle, William Harold Aldwinckle, Herbert Aldwinckle and William James Aldwinckle. Please contact me <cottinghamsoldiers@gmail.com> if you would like to know more.)

Servicemen descended from Thomas Aldwinckle (1816-1899):
William Augustus Aldwinckle, Ralph Aldwinckle and Ernest Henry Aldwinckle.

Servicemen descended from Henry Aldwinckle (1770-1842):
John Bartholomew Aldwinckle, Charles Henry Aldwinckle, Arthur Edwin Aldwinckle, Frederick Wade Coles, Albert Edward Aldwinckle, Archibald Aldwinckle, Frank Aldwinckle, Harry Aldwinckle, William John Aldwinckle,  Harry Aldwinckle, George Robert Aldwinckle, Thomas Aldwinckle and Walter Aldwinckle.

Servicemen descended from William Aldwinckle (1807-1891):
Bartle Essex Aldwinckle, Charles Reginald Burdett, Alfred Norman Burdett and William Edward Burdett.

Servicemen descended from John Aldwinckle (1817-1884):
John Aldwinckle, Percy Aldwinckle, Henry Aldwinckle and Bernard Aldwinckle.