Newton-le-Willows and Earlestown War Memorial

In Memory of

Private Charles Ernest Glover

200334
1st/4th Battalion South Lancashire Regiment
Killed in Action 12th September 1916 Age 19

Private Ernest Glover lived with his father, an employee of the Highways Department of the Newton District Coucil, at 223, Crow Lane West, who received the news of his son's death unofficially from Pte. Harold Whiteman, a neighbour.

According to the obituary in the Newton and Earlestown Guardian, Ernest was "one of those well-built lads who were able to join through fine physical development at an earlier age than he was really entitled to." (The minimum age for enlistment was nineteen.) He worked at the Vulcan Foundry and had no need to join but having had experience with the Territorials "threw in his lot with the forces when the urgent call for men was made."

Ernest, who was for some time orderly to Captain Townroe, had been in the trenches a long time without a furlough. He had attended the Congregational Church and Sunday School.

Ernest's name is on the Thiepval Memorial, which commemorates the missing of the Somme.

At the time of Ernest's death, his brother Albert was "trying to recover strength in Surrey after a bad attack of enteric fever, which caused him to be invalided home from the Dardanelles."

The Battalion War Diary for the day of Ernest's death records a football match against Hawks Bay Company of the Wellington Regiment, which the Battalion won two-nil.