Bintree – St. Swithin’s Church (War Grave of Ernest George Vince – Deserter)

Located at St. Swithin’s Church in Bintree is the Commonwealth War Grave of Ernest George Vince.

Ernest was born in 1888, the son of George Vince and Susanna Vince, the younger brother of James and Emma. George and James worked as bricklayers and this is also the trade that Ernest went into a few years later and he’s listed on the 1911 census as being the only child of the family still living with his parents. I can tell he struggled at school as his records are on-line and he was last in the class and on 11 July 1900 it was reported by the school that he was working illegally and I can imagine that he was being inducted into the bricklayer trade early on.

And herein lies what is likely a tale of woe and an individual probably not really given a chance before things went wrong. Over the next few years there was a constant run of criminality, including stealing a watch on 20 March 1907, stealing a bicycle on 1 July 1916, stealing a bicycle on 28 August 1916 and, once again, stealing another bicycle on 4 April 1917. He was also found guilty of larceny with intent to defraud, obtaining food and lodging by false pretences and numerous other cases of cheating. On 24 March 1917, the press reported that he had deserted from the British Army and when arrested by soldiers he had managed to escape from them. He lied about being a soldier to a lady in order to get food and accommodation, deciding not to mention he was a deserter.

He was a private with the service number 13442 in the Machine Gun Corps (infantry), formerly 18316 in the Norfolk Regiment, but his service records don’t seem to exist in any useable form. Ernest died on 28 December 1917 and was buried on 4 January 1918.