Profile

BATCHELOR, Ernest Robert
(Service number 78224)

Aliases
First Rank Private Last Rank

Birth

Date 13 June 1897 Place of Birth Sefton

Enlistment Information

Date Age
Address at Enlistment St Andrews
Occupation Farm labourer
Previous Military Experience
Marital Status Single
Next of Kin T. H. BATCHELOR (father), St Andrews, South Canterbury
Religion Church of England
Medical Information

Military Service

Served with NZ Armed Forces Served in Army
Military District

Embarkation Information

Body on Embarkation New Zealand Expeditionary Force
Unit, Squadron, or Ship 39th Reinforcements, A Company
Date 13 June 1918
Transport Athenic
Embarked From Destination Liverpool, Merseyside, England
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 Reason

Hospitals, Wounds, Diseases and Illnesses

Post-war Occupations

Labourer

Death

Date 6 March 1928 Age 31 years
Place of Death Christchurch
Cause Pulmonary tuberculosis
Notices
Memorial or Cemetery Bromley Cemetery, Christchurch
Memorial Reference Block 35, Plot 221
New Zealand Memorials

Biographical Notes

Ernest Robert Batchelor was born on 13 June 1897 at Sefton, the second son of Thomas Henry and Mary Elizabeth (née Bennett) Batchelor. The family seemed to have moved quite a lot from North Canterbury to South Canterbury. Ernest was educated Springston South and Burnham schools, leaving at the age of fourteen to go out to work. When he enlisted, he was a farm labourer for his father at St Andrews. His father was his nominated next-of-kin, his mother having died in 1906.

Private Ernest Robert Batchelor embarked per the “Athenic” on 13 June 1918 with 39th Reinforcements, destined for Liverpool, England. E. R. Batchelor, of St Andrews, returned home by the hospital ship “Marama”, which arrived at Auckland on 20 July 1919, with 672 men aboard.

Ernest married Ethel Burborough om 1923. He died of Pulmny tuberculosis on 6 March 1928 at Christchurch, aged just 31 years, and leaving a widow and two little children. Ethel lived on till 1980. His older brother, Henry (Harry) Thomas Batchelor, was killed in action in 1915 at Gallipoli.

Sources

Auckland War Memorial Museum Cenotaph Database [[11 May 2021]; NZ BDM Indexes (Department of Internal Affairs) [11 May 2021]; School Admission record (Canterbury Branch NZSG) [11 May 2021]; Temuka Cemetery headstone image (Timaru District Council) [07 May 2021]; Press, 8 July 1919, Otago Daily Times, 9 July 1919 (Papers Past) [07 May 2021]

External Links

Related Documents

No documents available. 

Researched and Written by

Teresa Scott, SC branch NZSG

Currently Assigned to

Not assigned.

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