Profile

PRIDHAM, Ernest Prideaux
(Service number 3/648)

Aliases
First Rank	Lieutenant	Last Rank	Captain

Birth

Date	23/02/1905	Place of Birth

Enlistment Information

Date		Age	33
Address at Enlistment	Temuka
Occupation	Dentist
Previous Military Experience
Marital Status	Married
Next of Kin	Mrs Eva M.L Pridham (wife) C/- P. Palmer, Edward St, St Claire, Dunedin
Religion
Medical Information

Military Service

Served with	New Zealand Armed Forces (?)	Served in	Medical Corps dental section
Military District

Embarkation Information

Body on Embarkation	Second Reinforcements
Unit, Squadron, or Ship
Date
Transport	Willochra
Embarked From	Wellington	Destination	Egypt

Other Units Served With
Last Unit Served With

Military Awards

Campaigns
Service Medals
Military Awards

Award Circumstances and Date

No information

Prisoner of War Information

Date of Capture
Where Captured and by Whom
Actions Prior to Capture
PoW Serial Number
PoW Camps
Days Interned
Liberation Date

Discharge

Date	5 July 1916	Reason	Disability

Hospitals, Wounds, Diseases and Illnesses

Post-war Occupations

Dentist

Death

Date	15 October 1955	Age	74
Place of Death	Hastings
Cause
Notices
Memorial or Cemetery	Hastings Cemetery
Memorial Reference	Plot: CRG/#/456
New Zealand Memorials

Biographical Notes

Ernest Prideaux Pridham was born in 1881, the son of Mary Rachel and Ernest Pridham. He graduated as a dentist in Dunedin in 1906, at that time his usual place of address was New Plymouth. He married Eva Marie Louise Palmer in 1907 and by 1909 was advertising as a “painless visiting dentist” in Temuka, operating out of the Royal Hotel. He advertised that he has operated on “thousands of people” in Otago and Southland and that his painless extractions were “simply marvellous”. His postal address was in Dunedin, but he also worked in Geraldine and Orari. By 1910 Pridham was operating out of his residence Wood St, Temuka (two doors below Temuka Laundry). He had two daughters, born in 1911 and 1913.

Pridham enlisted in 1914, leaving Temuka on 7 December to join the Expeditionary Force as a dentist. He was attested as a Lieutenant (service no.3/648) and embarked for Egypt on 22 December 1914. There he contracted dysentery and was sent back to New Zealand 8 June 1915. He was given six weeks’ leave on disembarkation for home treatment for post dysenteric debility, and deemed fit again for general service on 31 August, leaving once again for Egypt on 9 October. Pridham disembarked at Suez on 18 November but was admitted to hospital in Cairo on 20 December, once again suffering from dysentery. He was discharged back to duty on 31 December 1915 but once again was admitted to hospital on 15 April 1916 suffering from enteritis and was duly transferred to a convalescent home. He was invalided back to New Zealand for a second time on 2 April 1916, suffering from post-dysenteric debility and a chronic inflammation of some muscles of his right hand attributed to muscular strain in using dental instruments. He was discharged as unfit for active military service in July. There followed a long litigious correspondence with the military and with parliament over various matters concerning his discharge, ongoing medical problems concerning a trip over a tent peg, along with his ability to view his army record and his work as a civilian dentist. His service file consists of over 200 pages.

Pridham also volunteered to serve as a dentist during the Second World War but his offer was declined. He died in Hastings in 1955.

Sources

NZ Defence Force Personnel Records, Archives NZ; NZ BMD; Assorted articles courtesy of Papers Past at https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/; Hastings Cemetery database; Assorted records at Ancestry.com

External Links

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