Remembering Ernest John Peden (1874-1947): A Fine Uncle and a Dedicated Soldier

Ernest in a uniform likely from the Boer War

(Updated from the original post October 2017, with additional information about Ernest - November 2020)

My grandmother, Isobel, and my father were somewhat estranged - by geography and emotional connection both.  In her later years, my father would visit and managed to get some scrawled notes from her on her family background.  She spoke fondly of her uncles, none of whom we knew or had met.  One in particular I wanted to research, likely due to the Canadian connection.  She wrote:  “Ernest went ranching and lumber-jacking in Canada (Alberta?), enlisted in 1914 and came over to France with the Canadian Contingent.  Survived most of the 4 years but was wounded several times and then shot through the head.  A quiet, good, thoughtful, kind man – well-named Ernest.”

Isobel's hand-written note regarding her Uncle Ernest Peden

Thus began a many years long effort of learning what happened to Ernest.  I learned first a lot about his family background, and difficult childhood.  I was able to track down some military records of his time with the Hussars in South Africa (the photo of him in uniform is from that era).  I lost track of him for a while, then found him again very near to where I live on Vancouver Island in Canada.  He must have joined some cousins here, as there are Pedens who settled in and around Victoria (but I haven't been able to conclusively link them yet).  I was excited when his records for the Canadian Expeditionary Force were posted on Ancestry, and I learned so much about him then.  More records started trickling in until I learned that he had in fact survived the war and landed back in Canada.  I could find nothing of his life after his release from the war for about a year.  Then, records surfaced in New Zealand - where he had clearly gone to visit his father.  There was no question that Ernest spent time there, but it was years before I found his death place - back in Scotland.  This year Remembrance Day I decided to fully update this blog in memory of Ernest.  

The eldest Peden brother, born to Alexander Peden and his then wife MaryAnne Emily Holtum, was true to his name – earnest in demeanour and serious by nature.  His childhood was marred by his father, who was a drunk who first mistreated and then institutionalized his wife, took up with a nurse, then abandoned the whole family to move to New Zealand in 1896 (Ernest would have been 22).  It can’t have been an easy childhood near the turn of the century England.  They were not a wealthy family, and hoped, apparently, to make their fortune in the brewing industry when Ernest was a young boy. It was no wonder that Ernest seemed to fare best as a soldier.

Boer War

Ernest was 5 foot 8 inches, of dark complexion, with black hair and grey eyes.  He joined up with the British side in the Second Anglo- Boer  War (1899-1902) and fought for the 18^th Hussars.  He was severely wounded near Boschpoort on the 30^th of June 1901, after surviving the battle for Talana Hill eighteen months prior (the participation in which garnered him a medal).  It would appear that Ernest joined the war effort early, when he was about 25, and stayed for the duration.  The one thing that I have from Ernest is his Talana Hill medal.

Ernest’s return from the Boer war was short lived.  In 1903 he left Liverpool for Halifax, eventually making his way, via the United States, to the west coast of Canada.  He worked a short way from where I now live (a small world indeed) – in Comox on Vancouver Island.  After his family dysfunction and the madness of the war in Africa, the peace of the tall trees on the rugged Canadian west coast must have provided some solace.  It seems that other Peden relatives were living in Victoria, but I have been unable to confirm who (other than a cousin James that Ernest mentioned in his travel documents).  

Ernest’s quiet Canadian life was interrupted when war broke out in Europe.  The call for help from his English homeland must have been strong. 

On September 21, 1914, Ernest joined the war effort, this time for the Canadian side, just over a month after Canada, as a result of the UK declaring war, joined the fray.  He was assigned to the 8^th Canadian Battalion, 90^th Winnipeg Rifles in the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF).  Ernest joined as a private and stayed a private throughout the length of the war. He was relatively older when he did join up (40 years of age), although his records show that while he spent some time as a clerk, he spent most of the war in the trenches. 

Class A War Service Badge

Ernest’s record shows that he received the Class A War Service Badge, denoting his service at the front in France and Flanders.  His battalion fought, among other places, at Ypres, Vimy Ridge, the Somme and Passchendaele.  He wore the Good Conduct badge for his four years in the CEF: a chevron worn on the left sleeve of the dress uniform.

His records also contained hints about his experience in the First World War.  He was occasionally commended, sometimes punished for disobedience, worked as clerk (presumably to take a break from the front) and sent back to join his unit. He suffered with the front line soldiers, and was hospitalized for illness, dysentery, and trench fever several times over the course of the war.  He had had five months in hospital due to shell shock, and suffered typhoid fever.  He had lasting effects of these injuries and illnesses: he suffered from prostate problems and hemorrhoids, and undoubtedly other unseen mental illness compounded by his complex and traumatic childhood and youth. While his record may be normal for a private in WWI, it is a sobering thing to read in the comfort of your living room, not too many kilometres from his peaceful existence as a forestry worker on Vancouver Island. 

Ernest identified his oldest sister, Jessie Lloyd Stevenson (née Peden) as his next of kin. Jessie and Ernest were the oldest of the nine Peden children.  Ernest had left for the Boer war before his sister Jessie had married and left home in 1907, but as the eldest, and given his parents’ troubles, it is no wonder she was the one he most identified with. His mother, Mary Anne Emily Peden, née Holtum, had long since left her husband Alexander and was living on her own means.  Ernest, ever the conscientious eldest son, sent her money.

  

Ernest John Peden's discharge from the CEF was on May 7, 1919.  His travel documentation from his return to Canada after the war shows that in May 1919, Ernest sailed with other soldiers on the Empress of Britain, arriving in Quebec City with the intent of travelling to Vancouver.  He was 44 years old and had spent most of his life at war.  He had been injured multiple times, received medals, and had spent only a brief time in Canada between wars.  The first hint of what happened to him after his discharge is contained in his Canadian military records, which contain a card which says c/o Returned Soldiers Club, Albert Street, Auckland, New Zealand.  

It is through New Zealand military records that we can track some of what happened to Ernest next.

In September 1918, J.T.M. Hornsby, then Member of Parliament in New Zealand, writes to the Minister of Defence.  He had just been to the local library where he was waited upon by the librarian, Alexander Peden (an extraordinary change in careers for Alexander the brewer to have late in his life).  Hornsby was asking the Defence Department to help Alexander seek a furlough for his son Ernest from the Canadian military to New Zealand.  I gather that Mr. Hornsby and Alexander had had a long conversation as the letter included reference to his two other sons, one serving as second officer on a transport, and George, his third son, having been killed in Mesopotamia.  Mr. Hornsby concludes his letter as follows:  "The old folks (Scots people) would be glad if you could help them to have furlough granted to New Zealand of the eldest son."  The return letter from the Minister of Defence directs Mr. Hornsby to have Alexander write to the Canadian government.

Ernest's father Alexander Peden died in Carterton, New Zealand in October 1919.  Since Ernest was discharged in May, if we assume he made his way directly to see his father, Alexander would have died shortly after Ernest's arrival.  It is also possible that Ernest went to New Zealand upon learning of his father's death.  Regardless, Ernest had made his way to New Zealand after the war.  In July 1920, Ernest was admitted to Dannevirke Military Hospital in New Zealand, and released in August.

In 1921 Ernest wrote a letter to New Zealand's Defence Department from the Returned Soldier's Club in Auckland.  He was inquiring about an advertisement he had seen in the New Zealand Herald referring to War Medals, specifically the General Service Medal and Victory Medal.  He had received his 1914-15 Star, but not the other medals from the Canadian Government and was wondering how he could receive them.  He was hoping the New Zealand Government could contact their counterparts in Canada on his behalf.  The letter has a note on it from the administration in receipt of it suggesting he make his own inquiries of the Canadian Government.  This letter is the first time I have found something that belonged to Ernest, that included his handwriting and signature.  It was a moving find after years of trying to uncover what happened to him.  We don't know what he was doing in New Zealand after the death of his father.  He was 47 years old, had been through two ugly wars, severely injured and a half a world away from the rest of his family.

What we do know is that Ernest was in New Zealand until 1921 at least.  I spent many more months occasionally returning to my search for Ernest to find what had happened to him.

Perusing the newspapers on FindMyPast for obituaries for the Peden clan, I stumbled upon Ernest's  obituary.  He died November 27 1947 at Maryfield Hospital in Dundee, Scotland.

In 1947 Isobel Maxwell, my grand-mother and Ernest's niece, was living in Scotland.  When I discovered that Ernest had died in Dundee, and his niece, who adored him, never knew he survived the war and lived not too distant from her, I was very sad.  The Peden family was broken by alcoholism, domestic violence and dysfunction.  I know that my grand-mother (Ernest's niece) did not get along well with her mother, and that the family dispersed over time.  Someone went to the trouble of posting his obituary, presumably a family member who knew of his military service. 

In a longer reminiscence, my grand-mother, Ernest’s niece, Isobel Maxwell, described him – I think it is an excellent way to end this Remembrance Day dedication to Ernest John Peden:

Uncle Ernest, the eldest brother, was a still, quiet man with a lean sensitive face and patient thoughtful eyes.  I never could imagine him as a cowpuncher or a lumberjack, yet he had been both in Alberta and British Columbia Canada.  I used to picture him alone by the side of a swiftly flowing river deep in the Canadian woods.  He had a … canoe beside him on the bank, and perhaps a campfire waiting to discourage blackfly and mosquitoes…

I don’t remember that he did actually smoke but I should like him to have had a pipe and maybe a dog.  His thoughts would be contented thoughts but I do not think they would be gay.

My mother said to me once in rather serious tones, “Ernest is good, you know.”

I only saw him in uniform, a strangely gentle soul to be a good soldier which it seems he was.  He came over with the 1^st Canadian Contingent.  Everything unpleasant happened to him, from trench feet to a bad head wound.  He did not complain.  I hope that as a lad he had some real fun and happiness because I do not think his latter years brought him much.  He deserved better.

One of my letters to him began “Dear Uncle Earnest.”  My mother smiled but would not let me re-write it.