KEMPSON, Ernest Charles

Ernest Kempson was the son of Henry and Elizabeth Kempson of Stourbridge and was born on the 12th October 1893. He was admitted to Old Swinford Hospital in 1907 and apprenticed to Edward Webb and Sons, the seedsmen of Wordsley. He was an active member of St. Michael’s church, Brierley Hill and a teacher at the Sunday School. He volunteered, probably late in 1915, for the Royal Army Medical Corps and was attached to the 92nd Field Ambulance. In November 1916 they were fighting in the final struggle of the long battle of the Somme on the Ancre near Beaucourt. On the 18th he was engaged in taking the wounded to a dressing station immediately behind the front line. His working party came off duty and took a few hours’ rest in a dug-out but the enemy had not finished with its shelling. A shell fell into the dug-out and Private Ernest Kempson was killed immediately. As one of his fellow orderlies later wrote, ‘He was a brave man doing a brave thing.’ He was 23 years of age and is buried in Euston Road Cemetery (I E 4) and commemorated on the Brierley Hill, Brierley Hill church and Old Swinford Hospital Memorials.