Ernest Pegden

Ernest Pegden  1888 – 1979

Ernest was born on 28th August 1888 in Adisham, to Charles and Sarah Elizabeth (née Fox). His father was a groom and gardener in 1901, with the family living at Bossingham near Adisham. 

By 1911 Ernest was working as a gardener and boarding at 1 Ruskin Cottage with the Nash family. During the same year, he was called as a witness at the inquest into the death of George Bennett, who died of sunstroke. 

On 27th July 1912 he married Nellie Glandfield at Queenborough on the Isle of Sheppey, and in 1914, the Dover Express reported that he had been made a special constable in Shepherdswell. They had one daughter, Gladys Mabel, born on 13th October 1915, in Shepherdswell.

At a Dover Rural District Tribunal in May 1916, Mr Copus of The Grange had applied for a total 

exemption for Ernest, who was described as an assistant cowman and gardener, but this was 

refused. 

He was called up and joined the Grenadier Guards Regiment of Foot, service no. 25929, with his address being 4 Hillside. He had dark hair, dark grey eyes and was 5’ 8” tall. 

His records show that in January 1917, he let a soldier under close arrest escape, but he appears not to have  received punishment for this. In March 1918, his sight precluded him for foreign service. 

On 2nd June  1918 he was admitted to hospital with influenza and not discharged until 13th August. 

He was demobbed on 31st March 1920.

In 1939, the family were living in Northfleet, with Ernest giving his job as a Paper Mill Potcherman (the operator of a machine where rags, after being washed, are stirred and bleached as part of the paper-making process). 

He died on 5th April 1979 in the Dartford district.