Ernest Reginald Bowman, born in Gloucestershire in 1893, was the only son of Ner Tripp Bowman and his wife, Jane. They had him while working at The Gloucester Union Workhouse. Eight years later, in 1901, Ner and Jane resigned from their posts and moved to Suffolk where Ner became a night attendant at St Audry’s Asylum.

In 1911, Ernest was employed by the County Council as a pupil-teacher (a young person training to be a teacher, often one of the brighter students in the same school). The family lived at Rose Villa on Hackney Terrace in Melton. Sometime after the war started, Ernest enlisted in the Army Service Corps as a Private. He was posted to France on 16th April 1915 and remained there for the duration of the war. Ernest was demobilised on 22nd April 1919.

For his war service, Ernest received the 1914-15 Star and the British War and Victory Medals.

Ernest’s parents died in Melton during the Great War. His father, Ner Tripp, who was living at The Shrubbery, Hackney Road, died in 1915 and his mother, Jane, in 1918. In 1926, Ernest married Catherine Ellen Mandry in London. He died in 1954 in Uxbridge, Middlesex.