Pte Lionel James Ernest Swift

Lionel James Ernest Swift, who seems to have gone by Ernest, was born in Brentwood and grew up living at 7 Rose Valley and went to the Brentwood School as a boy. He stayed living there with his parents after he finished school, and in 1903 at age 16 started a job as assistant clerk to the board of education.

During the first world war, on 25th May 1915, he was enlisted after being called up to join the army. He seems to have remained in the UK with the 1/2nd Queen's Own Oxfordshire Hussars, possibly stationed on the Isle of Wight, until September 1916, when he was posted to the 6th Battalion Oxford & Bucks Light Infantry.

He embarked for France from Southampton on 20th September 1916, arriving the following day. He reached the front line on 28th September, where his new battalion was part of the Somme offensive. It was barely a week later, on 7th October, that Ernest was badly wounded - being shot through both thighs and the abdomen. He was sent back via a field hospital at Camiers to England and spent three months in Woodcote Park hospital in Epsom. Ernest left hospital at the end of January 1917, and was sent to Ireland. He left the army in 1919, by which point his wounds were described as completely healed and he had advanced to the rank of lance corporal.

He died in Brentwood in 1977 at age 94.