Ernest Haden Elliot

Family

Ernest Haden Elliot (sometimes spelt Elliott) and known as Haden, was born in Bridgnorth, Shropshire, on 14^th June 1895. He was the elder son of Ernest Elliot and his wife, Selina Beeston. Ernest Elliot (senior) was born in Wolverhampton. He became the Minister at the Flavel Congregational Church in Dartmouth in 1910. An article in the Dartmouth Chronicle of 9^th April 1915 described his earlier career:

Ernest Elliot married Selina Beeston in 1894. Like Ernest himself, she came from Wolverhampton. She was the daughter of William Beeston, a tailor, and his wife Mary Ann. During their time at Bridgnorth, Ernest and Selina had two children, Ernest Haden, born in 1895, known as Haden, and John Harold, born in 1900. As indicated above, the family moved to Sheerness, Kent, in 1905, and Dartmouth five years later. During his time in Dartmouth, according to the article mentioned above, Ernest Elliot:

Although obviously his parents were key members of Dartmouth's community, it is not clear whether Haden himself spent much time in the town. The 1911 Census recorded Ernest, Selina, and John living in "The Manse", Victoria Road, Dartmouth. But Haden had by this time left school and home, and started work. He lived with his paternal grandparents, John and Ann Elliot, at 31 Upper Villiers Street, Blakenhall, Wolverhampton.

Haden's grandfather, John Elliot, was a significant and well-known figure in the city. He was a deacon of the Snow Hill Congregational Church in Wolverhampton, and was appointed Librarian to the Wolverhampton Free Library when it was established in 1869. He was also its secretary and administrator, and played a significant role in developing the Library as a source of adult education. Eventually the classes at the Library became so successful that they were accommodated in a new Technical School, which (many years later) was one of the institutions combined to form the University of Wolverhampton.

John Elliot remained the Chief Librarian until his death in 1911. This occurred only a few days after the 1911 Census was taken (which probably explains why the household included a "sick nurse"). Given this very strong family association with the Library, it is not surprising that Haden also began his career there; aged 15 in 1911, he was an Assistant Librarian. He continued to live in Blakenhall with his grandmother, Ann Elliot, nee Haden, after his grandfather's death.

Service

Haden's service papers have survived, and from them we know that he attested for service with the 3^rd North Midland Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps, on 10^th November 1914. Although this was a Territorial Force unit, Haden volunteered on joining to serve overseas as well as in the United Kingdom. His attestation forms tell us that he was 5ft 6ins tall, with fair hair, blue eyes and a fair complexion. He was nineteen. From other records (see below), it appears that he joined up soon after his close friend, Joseph Horace Belcher, also a Library Assistant at the Wolverhampton Free Library, who had joined the 3^rd North Midland Field Ambulance on 7^th October 1914. Joseph was younger than Haden, two months short of his 18^th birthday; this may have been a reason why the two friends joined the Territorial Force, which had a minimum recruitment age of seventeen.

Haden and Joseph were both posted to the reserve, or second line unit, of the 3^rd North Midland Field Ambulance, part of the 2^nd North Midland Division. The first line unit was soon sent to the Western Front as part of the 46^th (North Midland) Division. Haden's unit remained at home for some time, providing replacements for the first line division, and being held in readiness should home defence forces be required against invasion. While training in St Albans, in July 1915, the second line division was designated the 59^th (2^nd North Midland) Division.

In April 1916, the 59^th Division was ordered to Ireland after the Easter Rising, returning to England in January 1917. It was then ordered to France. Only one page of the 2/3^rd North Midland Field Ambulance War Diary appears to have survived for 1916. This relates to February, when the unit was still in St Albans. There is no reference in Haden's service papers to his time in Ireland (included in the period he spent on "home" service).

The continuous pages of the War Diary begin at 6.40am on 25^th February 1917, when the unit left Gillingham, Dorset, for Southampton, arriving at the Docks at 9.20am, embarking on SS Manchester and SS King Edward at 8pm, and arriving in Le Havre a few hours later. By 8^th March 1917 they were taking over 692 patients from 1^st Northumbrian Field Ambulance at Villers-Bretonneux, east of Amiens, where they remained until the end of the month.

A Field Ambulance was the RAMC unit closest to the Front line. It consisted of around 240 men, including medical officers, stretcher bearers, nursing orderlies, cooks and clerks; and had its own transport, including both horse-drawn and motor ambulances, as well as stores wagons, water carts, cooks wagon, forage carts etc. Functionally, the unit was divided into stretcher-bearer and tent sections - the main task of the bearers was to carry the wounded, whereas the tent section nursed the wounded and sick. It seems that in 1917 (see below) Haden and Joseph were in the same Stretcher Bearer subsection. Whether this was his primary role throughout his service is not known.

The Field Ambulance was mobile, under command of a Division, responsible for the care of casualties of one of the Brigades of the Division. The theoretical capacity of the Field Ambulance was 150 casualties, but in battle, many would need to deal with much greater numbers. The aim was to get a wounded man treated as soon as possible and thus as near to the front line as possible, consistent with ensuring that treatment was effective and safe. Thus, the Field Ambulance was responsible for establishing and operating a number of points along the casualty evacuation chain, from the Bearer Relay Posts which were up to 600 yards behind the Regimental Aid Posts in the front line, taking casualties rearwards through an Advanced Dressing Station (ADS) to the Main Dressing Station (MDS). It also provided a Walking Wounded Collecting Station, as well as various rest areas and local sick rooms. Field Ambulances would usually establish one ADS per Brigade, and one MDS for the Division.

When not dealing with the wounded, the Field Ambulance was responsible for the day-to-day task of maintaining the health and efficiency of the front-line troops, dealing with sickness and attempting to prevent disease. The aim was as far as possible to keep soldiers within the Division or Corps area, to enable them to return to the front line as soon as possible.

Soon after his arrival in France, Haden himself became a patient, suffering from influenza, but had recovered and returned to his unit by 29^th March, in time for their move eastwards to Villers Carbonnel, south of Peronne. Although the unit's War Diary does not refer to it, the move was a result of the role of 59^th Division in following up the German retreat to the Hindenburg Line.

At the beginning of June, the Field Ambulance moved again, as the British front line moved forward, this time to Neuville Bourjonval and the neighbouring village of Metz-en-Couture. Near Metz, they constructed a "Dugout Hospital" - in the first two weeks, the Field Ambulance war diary recorded that:

With the help of expert advice and assistance from the Royal Engineers, the dugout was completed by the end of June; the War Diary records that during the month, they had dealt with 610 cases, 490 of whom were sick, and 120 wounded.

The Dugout Hospital was collecting casualties from the Villers-Plouich sector of the front line - the sketch above shows the evacuation routes. The Hospital was at position 3.

In the middle of July, the Division was relieved, and on 10^th July the Field Ambulance moved rearwards to Barastre, south-east of Bapaume. The Division was preparing and training for the forthcoming Flanders offensive, around Ypres, and their programme included a major tactical exercise in which 2/3^rd North Midland FA were to "collect and evacuate up to 1000 wounded from the 178^th Brigade".

However, the CO of the unit, Lt Col Stidston, was just as concerned (if not more so) about prevailing levels of trench fever, described at the time as "PUO" - pyrexia of unknown origin. The connection between PUO and lice was, by the middle of 1917, strongly suspected, but not yet conclusively proven. Lt Col Stidston was clearly up to date with current thinking - including work by German doctors - and wrote on 27^th July 1917 to the 59^th Division's Assistant Director of Medical Services to request a major de-lousing campaign. His letter shows that the work of the Field Ambulance continued even when there was neither an offensive, nor trench duty. It also shows why trench fever was a major concern:

The unit's War Diary does not report whether the Division acted on his suggestion. But it does record that from 10^th July - 22^nd August, the unit's "Detention Hospital" at Barastre admitted a total of 848 cases, of which:

• 172 were discharged to duty
• 279 were evacuated to a casualty clearing station
• 397 were transferred to the Corps Rest Station (for continued convalescence)

Lt Col Stidston noted that: "the prevailing disease being PUO".

The Third Battle of Ypres

While the 2/3^rd North Midland Field Ambulance was waging war against the louse at Barastre, the Third Battle of Ypres had begun on 31^st July, on a 7½ mile front around Ypres and extending also to the north and south - see the stories of William John Farrow Bates and Richard Goodman Carder. Although there had been some success north of Ypres, the heavily fortified Gheluvelt Plateau on the right of the front (south-east of Ypres) remained in enemy hands. On 25^th August, General Haig transferred responsibility for planning the next offensive to General Plumer, commanding Second Army, from General Gough, of Fifth Army. General Plumer first wanted three weeks preparation, before a series of "bite and hold" offensives, in four stages, each followed by a six-day pause, to allow for the preparation of the next step.

The first stage, now called the Battle of Menin Road, began on 20^th September, in good weather, and - broadly - achieved its objectives. After the requisite six days to consolidate and prepare, the next step was what is now called the Battle of Polygon Wood, launched on 26^th September, in which 59^th Division was to participate.

In the meantime, the 2/3^rd North Midland Field Ambulance, with the rest of 59^th Division, transferred from Third to Fifth Army, and was brought up to Flanders. They arrived at Proven, near Ypres, on 1^st September 1917, and marched to Luna Park, where they took over an Auxiliary Rest Station, consisting of 20 Marquees and 4 bell-tents. On 11^th September, they transferred to V Corps, which relieved XIX Corps in the line, and a week later, they moved to Poperinghe, to take over V Corps Scabies Station (such units dealt not only with scabies but also other skin conditions). Three officers and 160 other ranks were in Poperinghe, with other members of the unit in several other locations:

• one officer and 23 other ranks were manning V Corps Walking Wounded Collection Post at "The Mill", Vlamertinghe
• one officer and 30 other ranks were manning the 5^th Army Rest Station
• one officer was detached as Medical Officer to 2/4^th Bn Lincolnshire Regiment, and another as MO to 2/5^th Bn Leicestershire Regiment
• one officer was at a base hospital
• one officer and four other ranks were at the Depot at Merckeghem
• two motor ambulances, with their drivers and orderlies, and two horsed ambulances, with their drivers and orderlies, were on loan to 2/1^st North Midland Field Ambulance

From 21^st-23^rd September, in the pause between the first and second stages of General Plumer's attack, 59^th Division took over from 55^th Division on the left sector of the V Corps front, north-east of Ypres, and prepared for its role in the next stage of the offensive, attacking along the Wieltje-Graventafel road, east of the village of St Julien.

Orders for the medical arrangements (included in the 2/1^st North Midland FA War Diary) gave overall responsibility for the evacuation of sick and wounded to 2/1^st North Midland Field Ambulance, with support from the bearer divisions of the other two Field Ambulance units in the Division. Another 200 stretcher- bearers were to be provided by infantry battalions in the Division to assist in clearing the battlefield. The orders illustrate the elements of the casualty evacuation chain:

• Four regimental aid posts, two for each sector:
• Left sector: Capricorn Keep, and Pond Gallery
• Right sector: Bank Farm, and Pommern Redoubt
• Three relay posts through which wounded were to be evacuated to the Advanced Dressing Station at Wieltje:
• Bridge House
• Call Farm
• No. 44 Dugout
• The evacuation chain in the left sector was from Pond Gallery, to Capricorn Keep and thence by wheeled carriers to Call Farm relay post. From there bearers took the wounded to the ADS at Wieltje, through the next two relay posts.
• In the right sector, the chain went through Bank Farm to the relay post at Bridge House, and then to Call Farm and to the ADS at Wieltje.

The orders further observed that:

A later draft (also included in the War Diary) forbad RAMC bearers from assisting Regimental stretcher-bearers at the battle front. Twelve RAMC men were to be posted to each Regimental Aid Post to work between them and the first relay post.

Sick and wounded were kept separate: the Corps Sick Collecting Station was at Moated Farm, Vlamertinghe, west of Ypres, and the Corps Walking Wounded Collecting Station was also in Vlamertinghe, at The Mill. Walking Wounded were to be transferred from Wieltje to Vlamertinghe by train (or, failing the train, by lorry or bus); transport of lying and sitting cases from the ADS to the Corps Main Dressing Station or Casualty Clearing Station was to be by motor ambulance.

Accordingly, on 24^th September, 2/3^rd North Midland FA duly took over V Corps Sick Collecting Station at Moated Farm, Vlamertinghe. There were 51 patients, 31 of whom were variously evacuated to the Corps Rest Station, Casualty Clearing Station(s), or returned to units. Overall there was accommodation for 200 light cases. Over the next four days, one Medical Officer and 21 men dealt with 300 cases.

In the meantime, 95 men ("every available man", according to the 2/3^rd North Midland FA War Diary), in charge of Captain Bailey-Thompson, were sent to join 2/1^st North Midland FA, for duty as stretcher-bearers. It seems that Haden Elliot and his friend Joseph Belcher were amongst this group.

Although the offensive was not scheduled to begin until 26^th September, 2/3^rd North Midland FA sustained its first serious casualties the previous day, when several RAMC men were killed at No.44 Dugout relay post by a bomb dropped by aeroplane. They included three men from 2/3^rd North Midland FA, who were buried at Wieltje.

Death

The report of Lt Col Dawson, the commanding officer of 2/1^st North Midland FA, who had overall responsibility for casualty evacuation, reported that four RAMC Field Ambulance personnel were killed, and none wounded, during the 24 hours from 6am on 26^th September (ten minutes after "zero-hour") to 6am on 27^th September. Total casualties handled by the RAMC over the same period were 58 officers and 1577 other ranks. By his account, the evacuation process went well:

The increased flow in the early evening was due to a German counter-attack launched around 6.00pm. This was successfully resisted, though of course at some cost. Overall, 59^th Division was able to achieve almost all its objectives. Contrary to the usual perceptions of the experience of Third Ypres, the dry ground, and warm weather, made the evacuation process less difficult, even though the 200 additional stretcher-bearers did not materialise (one brigade provided 30 the following morning).

Although Lt Col Dawson reported that no RAMC personnel were wounded, Haden Elliot's own service papers record that on 27^th September shrapnel from a shell fractured his right femur and also wounded his right knee. Perhaps this occurred later than the period covered by Lt Col Dawson's report.

His papers do not record exactly where he was, but he was presumably taken to the ADS at Wieltje by one evacuation route or other, and then by motor ambulance away from the area behind the front line for further care. Oddly, given that he was RAMC personnel, there seems to have been some confusion about exactly what had happened to him - the 2/3^rd North Midland FA War Diary (which appears to have been written up around 5^th October) records his death from wounds on 27^th September, but his service papers clearly record his death four days later on 1^st October 1917, at No 4 Casualty Clearing Station near Dozinghem, near Poperinghe.

Haden was buried in Dozinghem Military Cemetery. Commonwealth War Grave Commission records show that his burial was initially recorded with the wrong service number and the wrong initials, but this was corrected by the time his headstone was inscribed.

Ernest Elliot had the headstone engraved with the words "The Souls of the Righteous are in the Hand of God".

Also wounded on the same day, and it would seem at the same time, was Haden's close friend Joseph Belcher. A notice in their memory was issued by the Wolverhampton Free Library, which read:

Evidently Joseph's body was not found, or not identified, for he is commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial. In correspondence included in Joseph's service record, which arose because his parents did not recognise as his a watch returned to them after his death, Lt Col Dawson, of 2/1^st North Midland Field Ambulance, said that he "believed he [Joseph] was killed in No Man's Land" and suggested that his effects (which included his spectacles) may have been carried to No 4 Casualty Clearing Station (from which they had apparently been sent to Joseph's parents) by "a wounded man". If the two young men were "side by side" when Joseph was killed, and Haden was wounded, this may explain how his effects were preserved. It also suggests that the two men may have been well forward of the RAMC's designated sections of the casualty evacuation route, even though they had been told not to go to the battle front.

The deaths of the two young men prompted a poem, by Arthur Saunders, published in the Wolverhampton Express & Star on 23^rd October 1917:

Commemoration

Ernest and Selena Elliot left Dartmouth in 1915 to move to Denton, in Manchester, where Ernest continued his work as a Congregational Minister. Haden is thus commemorated on the Denton War Memorial, in Victoria Park, Denton.

He is also commemorated on the War Memorial in St Luke's Church, in Upper Villiers Street, Wolverhampton, close to his grandparents' house; and, together with Joseph Belcher and other members of his unit, on a memorial in Wolverhampton erected to their fallen comrades by members of the 3^rd North Midland Field Ambulances in the 46^th and 59^th Divisions.

In Dartmouth, Haden is commemorated on the war memorial in the Flavel Church, where his father had served as Minister.

Sources

Service Papers of Ernest Haden Elliott [sic] and Joseph Horace Belcher are held at the National Archives and are accessible through subscription websites.

Adult Education and the Public Library in 19^th Century Wolverhampton, by Patrick Quirke

Field Ambulance War Diaries are available from the National Archives, fee payable for download. References:

• 59^thDivision 2/1 North Midland Field Ambulance Feb 1917- July 1919 WO 95/3018/1
• 59^th Division 2/3 North Midland Field Ambulance Feb 1917- July 1919 WO 95/3018/3

The Long Long Trail: The Field Ambulances

The Long Long Trail: 59^th (2^nd North Midland Division)

The Territorial Divisions 1914-1918, by J Stirling, publ London, Toronto, New York, 1922

Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, November 2006: Trench fever: The British Medical Response in the Great War, by R L Atenstaedt

Wolverhampton's War - Lost Voices from the Great War: use the search box to find entries for Ernest Haden Elliot and Joseph Horace Belcher

Denton War Memorial

St Luke's Church Memorial, Blakenhall, Wolverhampton

RAMC Memorial, St Peter's Church, Exchange Street, Wolverhampton

 

Information Held on Database

Surname:	Elliot
Forenames:	Ernest Haden
Rank:	Private
Service Number:	421338
Military Unit:	2nd/3rd North Midland Field Ambulance, RAMC
Date of Death:	01 Oct 1917
Age at Death:	22
Cause of Death:	Died of wounds
Action Resulting in Death:	Third Battle of Ypres
Place of Death:	4th Casualty Clearing Station
Place of Burial:	Dozinghem Military Cemetery, Belgium
Born or Lived in Dartmouth?	No
On Dartmouth War Memorial?	No
On St Saviour's Memorials?	No
On St Petrox Memorials?	No
On Flavel Church Memorials?	Yes
In Longcross Cemetery?	No
In St Clement's Churchyard?	No
On a Private Memorial?	Yes
Name of Private Memorial:
On Another Memorial?	Yes
Name of Other Memorial:	Denton War Memorial, Manchester; RAMC Memorial, St Peter's Church, Exchange Street, Wolverhampton; St Luke's Church Memorial, Blakenhall

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