Profile

ARBUCKLE, Ernest Vernon
(Service number 6/4586)

Aliases	Served as Ernest ARBUCKLE
First Rank	Private	Last Rank	Private

Birth

Date	29 August 1892	Place of Birth	Lawrence, Otago

Enlistment Information

Date	4 December 1915	Age	23 years
Address at Enlistment	80 Ghuznee Street, Wellington
Occupation	Labourer
Previous Military Experience
Marital Status	Married. Three children
Next of Kin	Mrs E. ARBUCKLE (wife), 91 North Street, Timaru
Religion	Presbyterian
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	11th Renforcements, Canterbury Infantry Battalion, C Company
Date	1 April 1916
Transport	Tahiti or Maunganui
Embarked From		Destination	Suez, 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	19 January 1917	Reason	No longer physically fit for war service. Pre-enlistment disability aggravated.

Hospitals, Wounds, Diseases and Illnesses

Post-war Occupations

Clerk

Death

Date	*1966	Age
Place of Death	Bankstown, New South Wales, Australia
Cause
Notices
Memorial or Cemetery	South Head Cemetery, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Memorial Reference	Section P, Row 5
New Zealand Memorials

Biographical Notes

Ernest Vernon Arbuckle was the sixth son of John Carse and Charlotte Ann (née Bastings) Arbuckle. He was born on 29 August 1892 at Lawrence, Otago, and was educated at the local school, leaving at the age of 15 for Wellington. He married Lyla Winifred Eliza Clare on 4 August 1913 at Dunedin. They had three daughters – Dolly born on 25 June 1914 at Dunedin, and twins, Joyce and Madge born on 10 October 1915 at Timaru. Dolly, Joyce and Madge all attended Timaru Main School. Ernest Arbuckle, a labourer, of 80 Ghuznee Street, Wellington, responded to a recruitment drive and, on filling the standard physical requirements, enlisted on 4 December 1915 at Trentham. He named his wife as next-of-kin – Mrs E. Arbuckle, 91 North Street, Timaru.

Private E. Arbuckle embarked with the Canterbury Infantry Battalion of the 11th Reinforcements, departing for Suez, Egypt, on 1 April 1916. 6/4586 Private Ernest Arbuckle, Canterbury Infantry Battalion, returned to New Zealand, invalided, by the hospital ship “Maheno” which was due to arrive at Wellington on 14 December 1916 approximately, having departed from England on 28 October 1916. He was discharged on 19 January 1917, being no longer physically fit for war service as a pre-enlistment disability had been aggravated.

In May 1921, Ernest Vernon Arbuckle petitioned for divorce on the grounds of desertion. His wife, he alleged, had gone in 1916 to spend a holiday with her mother and had not returned. An order for a decree nisi was made. An outside tally clerk employed by the National Dairy Association, Ernest suffered back injuries when he was accidentally jammed between a moving insulated railway truck and a hydraulic crane on the wharf at Wellington on 29 October 1920. Some months later he sought compensation. In 1922, he married Agnes Atley (formerly Roderigue, widowed in 1917), while Lyla married again in 1923. Agnes died in December 1936 at Wellington. Ernest married for a third time, in 1940 in Sydney, New South Wales, to Rebecca Lesley Irvine. He died in 1966 at Bankstown, New South Wales, and was buried at South Head Cemetery, Sydney.

Two brothers of Ernest served in World War One – Frederick William Arbuckle and Eric Alfred Bastings Arbuckle. Two cousins also served – Matthew Milson Arbuckle, who died of wounds in 1918 in France, and Albert Edward Arbuckle. Dolly Arbuckle married in 1940 at St Mary’s Church, Timaru. In March 1942, Joyce Arbuckle joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force at Wigram. She married in 1948. And Madge Arbuckle married in 1942 at Sacred Heart Church, Timaru.

Sources

Auckland War Memorial Museum Cenotaph Database [12 June 2022]; NZ BDM Indexes (Department of Internal Affairs) [12 June 2022]; School Admission record (Dunedin Branch NZSG) [12 June 2022]; NZ Times, 2 December 1915, 30 October 1920, Evening Post, 17 & 26 May 1921, 23 December 1936 (Papers Past) [12 June 2022]; NSW Cemetery Headstone Transcripts (ancestry.com.au) [12 June 2022]; NSW Death Index (https://familyhistory.bdm.nsw.gov.au/lifelink/familyhistory/search/result?4) [12 June 2022]

External Links

Researched and Written by

Teresa Scott, SC branch NZSG

Currently Assigned to

Not assigned.

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License unless otherwise stated.

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