E.+A.+HAWKSWORTH

Hawksworth, Ernest Alfred, Corporal, R/1408, 12th Battalion, King's Royal Rifle Corps Born Kniveton, Derbyshire Enlisted Birmingham, Warwickshire Resided Bearwood, Birmingham Killed in action 16th August 1917 aged 23 Commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial

Ashbourne News, 31st August 1917 Ernest Alfred Hawksworth was a native of Kniveton, and was educated at the Ashbourne Grammar School. He enlisted when war broke out in 1914, being then a grocer's assistant in Birmingham. After training on Salisbury Plain, he went to France in February 1915, and served there until being invalided home with pneumonia. He visited Ashbourne in May 1917, after leaving a convalescent home in Mansfield, before returning to the front. Captain Sampson wrote as follows: 'I am sorry to have to tell you that your son was killed in action on – in the British advance on that date. He was killed instantaneously by a rifle shot from a German sniper behind him, and could not have suffered any pain. It is hard to say how much his friends and myself feel his loss. He was a good and cheerful lad, who had been promoted Corporal on my recommendation only a short time before. He did his duty nobly, and helped to pay the sacrifice for his country and dear ones.' He was aged 23. He was the brother of John Hawksworth of South Street, Ashbourne, Sergeant Emmanuel Hawksworth of the Royal Army Medical Corps and Private George Hawksworth, of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment.


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