Ernest Arthur St George Bedbrook died of illness on this day in 1918
Ernest Arthur St George Bedbrook was born at Chatham Dockyard in Kent on 23 April 1879, the seventh of the 10 children of James Albert and Matilda Bedbrook née Crocker. His father became ‘Chief Inspector of Machinery in Her Majesty’s Fleet’ in the rank of Engineer Rear Admiral
Educated at St. George’s College, Wimbledon, and having received private tuition in engineering subjects, he became a civil engineer and joined the Civil Engineering Department of the Admiralty and later London County Council; in the latter appointment, he was involved in the design of Greenwich generating station. He then worked for Messrs. Rendel & Robertson, Consulting Engineers for the India Office, and was European representative of the Pennsylvania-based Midvale Steel Co.
In July 1904, he married Myra Gwendoline Russell (née Stares) at Portchester. They went on to have two sons, Gerald born in May 1907 and Basil born in March 1911.
In 1911, the family of four lived at 5 St. Peter’s Road, Harborne, Birmingham with three servants: a maternity nurse, nurse (domestic) and cook. At the time Ernest was working as a consulting engineer for the India Office.
He was gazetted 2nd Lieut South Wales Borderers in May 1915 and trained with the 9th (Reserve) Battalion before moving to employment at Woolwich Arsenal from September that year.
Ernest and his family moved to a house in Knollys Road in Streatham.
He was soon appointed as an Assistant Inspector of munitions with the Inspection Department, subordinate to the Ministry of Munitions, in the United States. He arrived in New York onboard the RMS Saxonia in November 1915 to take up an appointment in Philadelphia, at which time he was transferred to the General List. He was promoted Inspector in May 1916 and Assistant Director in the November.
The British war effort in the United States was centralised in 1917, when the British War Mission was established at the City Investing Building at 165 Broadway in New York.
Ernest became Deputy Director in November 1917 and was promoted to Major in January 1918. He was admitted to a private sanatorium in Manhattan suffering from appendicitis, undergoing surgery on 21 April. In his subsequent report to the Military Attaché, Brigadier General Kenyon stated that Bedbrook "was doing quite well until the morning of the 1st May, when he had a relapse from which he did not recover".
He died in New York 1 May 1918 and was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx, on 4 May, where the grave was marked with a private memorial.
He was 39 years of age.
Major Ernest Arthur St George Bedbrook, South Wales Borderers