Flaybrick Cemetery
Ernest Herschell
Captain Ernest Herschell was a big personality: he was physically strong, well-educated, successful in business, well-liked and a talented rugby-player. Interestingly, he is another of our local casualties with German ancestry.
His father was Adolph Herschell (1830-1913), who came to Hull from Germany in about 1855.
He eventually settled in Liverpool and made his money in the African trade.
His wife was Anne Emerson (born c.1841 in London). The couple married in Marylebone in 1870.
Anne’s family were also successful business people, involved in silk manufacture and international trade.
Adolph and Anne eventually settled in Beresford Road in Oxton. They had five children – Arnold, Jane, Bertha, Ernest and Edith. In 1891 Ernest was a boarder at Amersham Hall School in Caversham, just north of Reading.
The school had been founded by Ebenezer West in 1829 “for the sons of dignified gentlemen”.
Doubtless it was here that he learned to play rugby – the sport which he grew to love and to play very well at a high level. He became a member of the Birkenhead Park Club.
Someone calling himself C.C. wrote Ernest’s eulogy which appeared in The Birkenhead News of 30th September 1916: “Captain Ernest Herschell was a great rugby player. As a forward he stood high among his fellows in the middle of the nineties … For ten successive years he was in the list of prominent men north of the Trent … with ‘Flapper’ Herschell in the scrum it was much more healthy to be on his side than against him. He was a deadly tackler, and when he got the ball tucked under his arm and set the pace it was almost more than mortal man could do to bring him down.”
He said that Ernest played for the North against the South at Exeter in 1897, in 1898 at Newcastle and in 1905 at Birkenhead. He also played against the New Zealand All Blacks in that year. He played cricket for Oxton, but “rugby was his code”.
His brother Arnold was a famous tennis player.
By 1911, Ernest was married to Bertha Mary and living on Heron Road in Meols; the couple had a seven-month old baby called Winifred Mary and employed two servants – Maud Edith Partington from Beaumaris and Elizabeth Derbyshire of Liverpool. Ernest was doing well in business – he was a managing director for a firm of forwarding agents, called R.H. Morgan and Co. Ltd., which specialised in trade with South America. Ernest had worked for some time in Argentina, where he was probably able to keep up his rugby.
He probably spoke Spanish, which is why his house was named Buen Orden, meaning “good order”.
C.C. went on to comment about Ernest’s military career: “Having passed his fortieth year, he could have kept out of the war, but his old love to be where the strife was hottest, and his great patriotism, forced him to leave his family and home for the trenches, and he joined the Liverpool Regiment”. The 1/6th Battalion was a territorial unit which became part of the 165th Brigade, 55th (West Lancashire) Division.
He was promoted from lieutenant to the temporary rank of captain on 16th November 1914, interestingly at the same time as another German-sounding officer – Charles E. Wurtzburg.
The 55th Division relieved the 11th (Northern) Division on the Somme front 25th July 1916, in the area facing Guillemont. It took part in the Battles of Flers-Courcelette between 17th and 22nd September and Morval between 25th and 28th September.
The Book of Remembrance says that he died at Flers. C.C. said, “Today he lies low, but I’ll warrant he did his duty. Ernest Herschell was a good fellow, and as a sportsman he could take hard knocks as generously as he gave them to his opponents , and many a hundred men had cause to remember him when his springing footsteps were prancing the enclosure of a Rugby field. Those of us who knew him are sorry for his end. Some day, perchance, I may recall the lighter side of his genial nature. At the moment we bow to the severance, and salute the name and record of one who did his bit for King and country.”
Ernest’s parents lived well into their 80’s and are buried in West Kirby. The family grave is in Grange Hill Cemetery.
Notes:
Birth: June 1875
Death: 26th September 1916 aged 41
Addresses: 29 Beresford Road, Oxton (81-01), ‘Buen Orden’, 21 Heron Road, Meols
Occupation: Managing Director of a Firm of Forwarding Agents, Engaged in the South American Trade
Unit: 6th Bn. King’s (Liverpool Regiment)
Rank: Captain
Medals: 14/15 Star, British War and Victory
Commemorated and Buried: GH, H. GHC, France: Somme, Heilly Station Cemetery, Mericourt-L’Abbé IV. G. 38.
The above information was obtained from an online article:
An Imperishable Record
The People of North-West Wirral and the Great War by
Stephen John Roberts.
Ernest Herschell
Captain Ernest Herschell was a big personality: he was physically strong, well-educated, successful in business, well-liked and a talented rugby-player. Interestingly, he is another of our local casualties with German ancestry.
His father was Adolph Herschell (1830-1913), who came to Hull from Germany in about 1855.
He eventually settled in Liverpool and made his money in the African trade.
His wife was Anne Emerson (born c.1841 in London). The couple married in Marylebone in 1870.
Anne’s family were also successful business people, involved in silk manufacture and international trade.
Adolph and Anne eventually settled in Beresford Road in Oxton. They had five children – Arnold, Jane, Bertha, Ernest and Edith. In 1891 Ernest was a boarder at Amersham Hall School in Caversham, just north of Reading.
The school had been founded by Ebenezer West in 1829 “for the sons of dignified gentlemen”.
Doubtless it was here that he learned to play rugby – the sport which he grew to love and to play very well at a high level. He became a member of the Birkenhead Park Club.
Someone calling himself C.C. wrote Ernest’s eulogy which appeared in The Birkenhead News of 30th September 1916: “Captain Ernest Herschell was a great rugby player. As a forward he stood high among his fellows in the middle of the nineties … For ten successive years he was in the list of prominent men north of the Trent … with ‘Flapper’ Herschell in the scrum it was much more healthy to be on his side than against him. He was a deadly tackler, and when he got the ball tucked under his arm and set the pace it was almost more than mortal man could do to bring him down.”
He said that Ernest played for the North against the South at Exeter in 1897, in 1898 at Newcastle and in 1905 at Birkenhead. He also played against the New Zealand All Blacks in that year. He played cricket for Oxton, but “rugby was his code”.
His brother Arnold was a famous tennis player.
By 1911, Ernest was married to Bertha Mary and living on Heron Road in Meols; the couple had a seven-month old baby called Winifred Mary and employed two servants – Maud Edith Partington from Beaumaris and Elizabeth Derbyshire of Liverpool. Ernest was doing well in business – he was a managing director for a firm of forwarding agents, called R.H. Morgan and Co. Ltd., which specialised in trade with South America. Ernest had worked for some time in Argentina, where he was probably able to keep up his rugby.
He probably spoke Spanish, which is why his house was named Buen Orden, meaning “good order”.
C.C. went on to comment about Ernest’s military career: “Having passed his fortieth year, he could have kept out of the war, but his old love to be where the strife was hottest, and his great patriotism, forced him to leave his family and home for the trenches, and he joined the Liverpool Regiment”. The 1/6th Battalion was a territorial unit which became part of the 165th Brigade, 55th (West Lancashire) Division.
He was promoted from lieutenant to the temporary rank of captain on 16th November 1914, interestingly at the same time as another German-sounding officer – Charles E. Wurtzburg.
The 55th Division relieved the 11th (Northern) Division on the Somme front 25th July 1916, in the area facing Guillemont. It took part in the Battles of Flers-Courcelette between 17th and 22nd September and Morval between 25th and 28th September.
The Book of Remembrance says that he died at Flers. C.C. said, “Today he lies low, but I’ll warrant he did his duty. Ernest Herschell was a good fellow, and as a sportsman he could take hard knocks as generously as he gave them to his opponents , and many a hundred men had cause to remember him when his springing footsteps were prancing the enclosure of a Rugby field. Those of us who knew him are sorry for his end. Some day, perchance, I may recall the lighter side of his genial nature. At the moment we bow to the severance, and salute the name and record of one who did his bit for King and country.”
Ernest’s parents lived well into their 80’s and are buried in West Kirby. The family grave is in Grange Hill Cemetery.
Notes:
Birth: June 1875
Death: 26th September 1916 aged 41
Addresses: 29 Beresford Road, Oxton (81-01), ‘Buen Orden’, 21 Heron Road, Meols
Occupation: Managing Director of a Firm of Forwarding Agents, Engaged in the South American Trade
Unit: 6th Bn. King’s (Liverpool Regiment)
Rank: Captain
Medals: 14/15 Star, British War and Victory
Commemorated and Buried: GH, H. GHC, France: Somme, Heilly Station Cemetery, Mericourt-L’Abbé IV. G. 38.
The above information was obtained from an online article:
An Imperishable Record
The People of North-West Wirral and the Great War by
Stephen John Roberts.