EDWARDS, Ernest Osborne

Ernest Edwards was the son of John Henry and Jane Edwards of 22 Level Street, Brierley Hill, and worked as a blacksmith at the Earl of Dudley’s Round Oak steelworks. He volunteered in September 1914 for the South Staffords and joined the 7th (Service) Battalion. They were in training until 1915 when they were sent to Gallipoli to reinforce the troops on the peninsula. The new landings at Suvla Bay were met with dogged Turkish resistance and the troops suffered heavy losses in trench warfare and disease. A most efficient evacuation took place on the 19th December but four days earlier Corporal Ernest Edwards had died in one of the last actions on the peninsula. He is buried in Azmak Cemetery, Suvla, (I G 21) and commemorated on the Brierley Hill and Brierley Hill church Memorials.