Izod, Ernest Sidney

Hull Pals Memorial Post. PRIVATE ERNEST IZOD 11/852. Born in January 1870, in Bethnal Green, London Ernest was the fourth of five children to William Henry Izod (1841-1905) and Harriet Izod (1842-1899), of 161 Glenarm Road, Hackney. Older than most of the volunteers, Ernest was a Ships Steward working out of Hull when war broke out. He was a bachelor lodging with the Hardwick family at 20 Boynton Street. Maybe he was fiercely patriotic, or maybe he just saw it as his last chance for adventure, but the 44-year old Ernest enlisted at City Hall joining the 11th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment, ‘The Tradesmen’, 2nd Hull Pals. Having trained with the battalion throughout 1915 and served in Egypt over the winter, he arrived in France early in March 1916 and so began the final weeks of his life wading through mud in ditches cut through France and Belgium while being shot at by men in exactly the same situation 100 yards further north. Ernest was killed in action on 1st August 1916 and is buried at Le Touret Military Cemetery; he was 46 years old. His army effects were leftto his brother, William and sister in law, Jessie Izod