Ernest Maple: A Kent Labourer Lost at Loos

Early Life and Family

Ernest Maple was born at Woodnesborough, near Sandwich in Kent, in the third quarter of 1877. He was the son of William Maple and Elizabeth Twoortle Divers, later known as Elizabeth Maple. His birth was registered in the Eastry district, tying his early life to the villages of east Kent. [1]

In 1881 Ernest lived at Chalkpit Cottage, Woodnesborough, with his family. By 1891 the Maples had moved to Kittington Cottage, Holt Street, Nonington, where thirteen-year-old Ernest was already employed as a farm servant. This early entry into work reflected the rural economy of the district and the limited opportunities available to many working-class Kent families. [1]

As an adult Ernest continued to make his living through manual labour. In 1901 he was a boarder at Eastry Court and worked as a bricklayer’s labourer. Ten years later, still unmarried and boarding at Eastry Court Farm, he described his employment as a navvy above ground. By 1915, military sources associated him with Adisham, while the Commonwealth War Graves record named his widowed mother, Elizabeth, of Ringwould near Dover. [1]

From farm service and building labour in east Kent, Ernest Maple entered the New Army and died in the 6th Buffs’ disastrous attack at Loos.

Military Service

Ernest Maple enlisted for General Service during the first year of the Great War, when he was about thirty-seven years old. He served as Private S/120 in the 6th (Service) Battalion, The Buffs (East Kent Regiment), the county regiment with which so many men from his part of Kent served. [1]

The surviving report does not preserve his exact attestation date, training history or date of arrival in France. His entitlement to the 1914–15 Star, however, confirms overseas service before the end of 1915. He was also awarded the British War Medal and Victory Medal, with a Memorial Plaque issued after his death. [1]

Maple was unmarried and left no children. As the son of the late William Maple, the family member most directly identified in the commemoration record was his mother Elizabeth at Ringwould. His death therefore deprived a widowed mother of her son, after a life in which he had worked from boyhood in agriculture and construction. [1]

The 6th Buffs

The 6th (Service) Battalion, The Buffs, was raised at Canterbury in August 1914 as part of Kitchener’s First New Army. It joined the 37th Brigade of the 12th (Eastern) Division, trained in England, and reached France in June 1915. The battalion was thus still comparatively inexperienced when it entered the fighting at Loos later that year. [2][3]

The 37th Brigade included the 6th Queen’s Own (Royal West Kent Regiment), 6th Queen’s (Royal West Surrey Regiment), 7th East Surrey Regiment and 6th Buffs. These New Army battalions were assigned demanding roles during the battle, particularly in the contested ground around Hulluch, the Hohenzollern Redoubt and the coal-mining landscape known as the Quarries. [4][2]

The Battle of Loos was the largest British offensive of 1915. It began on 25 September and involved the British Army’s first major use of chlorine gas, but problems with wire, communications, ammunition and reinforcements meant that early gains could not be converted into a decisive breakthrough. British losses eventually exceeded 50,000 men. [5]

The Hohenzollern Fighting

By early October, attention had shifted to the area around the Hohenzollern Redoubt, a strong German defensive position near the mining village of Auchy-les-Mines. The 12th (Eastern) Division relieved Guards formations near the Chalk Pit and spent days preparing trenches, roads and forward positions under persistent enemy shellfire. [2]

The renewed British operation began on 13 October 1915. It was intended to regain momentum after previous fighting around the redoubt and to seize tactical ground between Gun Trench and the Quarries. The 35th and 37th Brigades of the 12th Division were committed in the assault, while other formations attacked elsewhere around the Hohenzollern position. [6][2]

The 6th Buffs, alongside the 7th East Surreys, attacked in the 37th Brigade sector. The East Surreys reached Gun Trench, but the 6th Buffs were caught by devastating fire from a German trench that had not been located and had therefore escaped the preliminary bombardment. The assault exposed the battalion to rifle, machine-gun and artillery fire almost immediately. [7][2]

On 13 October 1915 the 6th Buffs were shattered by fire from an unseen German trench, losing 409 men in the attack near Gun Trench.

Circumstances of Death

Private Ernest Maple was killed in action in France on 13 October 1915. He died while the 6th Buffs fought as part of the 37th Brigade’s attack during the actions around the Hohenzollern Redoubt, often treated as the final phase of the Battle of Loos. [8][2][1]

The battalion’s losses were catastrophic. The 6th Buffs suffered 409 casualties on 13 October, including eighteen officers; contemporary accounts described the unit as being virtually shattered. A supporting account from the 6th Royal West Kents stated that the Buffs lost the best part of three companies, including their commanding officer. [9][7][2]

No individual testimony in the available record identifies the precise manner or place of Maple’s death. It would therefore be wrong to attribute it to a specific shell or bullet. The evidence firmly places him among the 6th Buffs’ losses in the failed advance between Gun Trench and the Quarries, where the attack was overwhelmed by German fire. [2][1]

The attack of 13 October failed at considerable cost. Across the wider Hohenzollern operation, British casualties totalled 3,643, with many incurred within the opening minutes. The result demonstrated the strength of the German defences and the grave difficulty of attacking well-prepared trench systems without effective artillery neutralisation. [6][8]

Commemoration

Ernest Maple has no known grave. He is commemorated on Panels 15 to 19 of the Loos Memorial, which stands near Loos-en-Gohelle and bears the names of more than 20,000 servicemen who died in the Loos sector from 25 September 1915 to the end of the war and whose graves are unknown. [1]

His absence from an identified burial reflects the destructive nature of the fighting in October 1915. Men killed in exposed advances or in ground repeatedly shelled and fought over could be lost without a marked grave, leaving their names on memorials as the enduring record of their service and death. [2][1]

The Loos Memorial provides the principal place of remembrance for Maple. His medals—the 1914–15 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal—and his Memorial Plaque offered his family further tangible recognition of a life ended during one of the first major British offensives of the war. [1]

Legacy

Ernest Maple’s life was rooted in the agricultural and working communities of east Kent. From Chalkpit Cottage in Woodnesborough to Nonington, Eastry, Adisham and the family home at Ringwould, his story traces a familiar pattern of rural labour, building work and boarding-house life before wartime service. [1]

He was older than many men in the New Army, yet served in one of its Kent battalions during a severe early test on the Western Front. The destruction of the 6th Buffs at Gun Trench makes his death part of a particularly tragic chapter in the regiment’s history. [9][2][1]

Maple left no direct descendants, but his name survives on the Loos Memorial and within the records of The Buffs. Remembering him restores an individual Kent labourer to the wider history of the Battle of Loos and the costly attacks around the Hohenzollern Redoubt. [3][1]

Sources and Further Reading

• Commonwealth War Graves Commission: Private Ernest Maple.
• Commonwealth War Graves Commission: Loos Memorial.
• The Long, Long Trail: The Battle of Loos.
• National Army Museum: Battle of Loos.
• Commonwealth War Graves Commission Foundation: Casualties of the Battle of Loos.
• Great War Forum: The Buffs 6th Battalion and the Battle of Loos.
• Wartime Memories Project: 6th Battalion, East Kent Regiment (The Buffs).
• Find a Grave: Private Ernest Maple.
• Ancestry: census, service, soldiers’ effects and medal sources cited in the individual report.

Sources
[1] Individual-Report-for-Ernest-Maple.pdf https://ppl-ai-file-upload.s3.amazonaws.com/web/direct-files/attachments/141549598/145f78f2-4ddf-4c81-8150-42524ec11e95/Individual-Report-for-Ernest-Maple.pdf?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Checksum-Mode=ENABLED&X-Amz-Credential=ASIA2F3EMEYE3BXQZDPD%2F20261013%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20261013T115020Z&X-Amz-Expires=1858&X-Amz-Security-Token=IQoJb3JpZ2luX2VjENT%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2FwEaCXVzLWVhc3QtMSJIMEYCIQCiUnu8%2BtAoCto7jExAQyIXCblw1dHS1phdSHx1xV%2FYuwIhALVVxpO4MqRxp8JFMq8LgKO9Zap6XZIQjEUghOOnDJ%2FvKokFCJz%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2FwEQARoMNjk5NzUzMzA5NzA1IgxHw3mjRGkt1gs9fKgq3QT58BSxiAHtQRU2bD2gNE9pZpAd9OnJH7iieWuerZy2kYrlEP7nMi3UaA2qM2LWnvgTie8hjRTH59fZ2ogK8WG3tWXjeOfF1YIYF4cL%2BLYCr4u3siUdp0pBiZZB6ChunGDWdK5ateXgbjDB%2Fsm%2Fn%2BJ2QqVxMgNSkTLiiOs%2Bdny6va2%2FGRHO2nLQ2uF2i3TxcEnR5d7FXeKySbO4EbgyfY2zTXOsh%2BpYC9Cz4Oh1%2BFg6qtjYT5gwVYH5Ucs2GbDGCJBa3Ud19uZxuRmHOp4B7sFdKF43YWFOLnYICi8KTer%2BO5drHRDn33fjX1qki6K6qMKEF92du1fVS3oCIgemkG7FYbLYgIm1dHwWTaqXxCCpjcKdE4C63x3mPZjul%2FjQUphwnTAC4VuSxPOGFAhubV1KznEyscDMbG8azrKHd24%2BQEZ2KKccSnEn35tQS2iKx0%2BEWxSyjPtGmopV2WxFrtATJpJnN1RQq6b987wHnD4Zgqyb7v83kdRHvWChvPqZuh3oJzfmZKHMWbyaP1oYzpL1yAIBNwB0O94eD5O5V1DOQ4EL647hzw4zYjq7aJ0Aakwl0WWEYDyoGJG8jXrM0FghcFozAFhQDFRYD4aU6y3BNVTK1lOWgT6Nco0nzcG79Cmw3hQZjYz455MR7zXt43yA4AFbe%2ByRsSoxQ86sN9AjZoWGhVKRnYfLOdiL%2BEieR2o3%2FdMirFH3COLZmcsp1yryIt%2BeXm6dckVU75VxGzd9kuam%2FgqH9B24%2Ffi8QokSmu0%2F%2FNACG7I2uF5rA0OFG%2Btn0tYNS0Xp1UG1jUhenzDrqLjWBjqXAU8lRcAn%2FuwhXIfJPmxaJyKO0ooOGyXScuxNeV0EpSfziQPgLuQj88J73x8RijAi2U7HCu6OLXZL9TXe8UTNdqZlGaVZZyogVhNt98veu%2FO4aamfVCYz8bQ28n14INd9V7IEgOuesSpUtITPqdZICArAF5WL0L7wt7LJPd7K2YbLNrr6nsMArh0rrDOFBRzDO3UNCiTKi1M%3D&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&x-id=GetObject&X-Amz-Signature=be1b120eec5f71f7bf8a490ac6a8aa1b529b9a46b7d710f3900077f04177488b
[2] The Battle of Loos – The Long, Long Trail https://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/battles/battles-of-the-western-front-in-france-and-flanders/the-battle-of-loos/
[3] 6th Battalion, East Kent Regiment (The Buffs) in the Great … https://wartimememoriesproject.com/greatwar/allied/battalion.php?pid=475
[4] The Battle of Loos Battle Order | PDF | Artillery Battery – Scribd https://www.scribd.com/document/278925973/The-Battle-of-Loos-Battle-Order
[5] Battle of Loos | National Army Museum https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/battle-loos
[6] Actions of the Hohenzollern Redoubt – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actions_of_the_Hohenzollern_Redoubt
[7] WW1 Diary from the Battle Of Loos – Forces War Records Blog https://uk.forceswarrecords.com/blog/100-years-on-the-battle-of-loos/
[8] Hohenzollern Redoubt – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohenzollern_Redoubt
[9] We Tell Their Stories: Casualties of the Battle of Loos – CWGC https://foundation.cwgc.org/blog/we-tell-their-stories-casualties-of-the-battle-of-loos/
[10] Battle of Loos – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Loos
[11] The Buffs 6th Battalion – Battle at Loos – Great War Forum https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/84342-the-buffs-6th-battalion-battle-at-loos/
[12] Webmatters : The Battle of Loos, 12th (Eastern) Division https://www.webmatters.net/index.php?id=723
[13] On this day — October 13 https://www.ntxe-news.com/artman/publish/article_147169.shtml
[14] [PDF] The battle of Loos – University of St Andrews Research Portal https://research-portal.st-andrews.ac.uk/files/257295439/Patrick_2015_BattleLoos_WW100_VoR.pdf
[15] 12th Division at Loos – Soldiers and their units – The Great … https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/9448-12th-division-at-loos/
[16] Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Part 24 https://vault.fbi.gov/veterans-of-the-abraham-lincoln-brigade/veterans-of-the-abraham-lincoln-brigade-part-24/view