Dear All,
I am currently editing the Loughborough Roll of Honour and have found a WW1 soldier who is a great problem.
What I know about him is as follows:
Ernest Leslie Oswin was born in Loughborough in 1898, the eldest son of Edward Oswin, an upholsterer and furniture porter, and his wife Sarah (nee Handford) who were married in Loughborough in 1890.
Ernest had two brothers Albert and Reginald and one sister [Sarah] Doris. Ernest's mother died in 1905 and in 1911 the widowed Edward Oswin was boarding with three of his children (Albert, aged 10, Doris, aged 8 and Reginald, aged 6) at 21 Gladstone St, Loughborough, the home of John and Eliza Foulds. Ernest in 1911 was an ‘inmate’ at the Northampton Society’s Reformatory for Boys at Tiffield, Towcester, Northants and his occupation was labourer.
Ernest next appears on the Wood Gate Baptist Church War Memorial as having been killed in WW1. Loughborough Baptist Church have no other record of him.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission database has no record of him. I have tried to find him on other databases (military and otherwise) using all manner of searches to no avail. There are one or two other soldiers called 'Ernest Oswin' from Leicestershire but unfortunately they do no fit the bill.
Did he serve under an alias? Perhaps he was not killed in WW1?
I am open to any research suggestions that anyone might have as I am getting nowhere with Ernest Leslie Oswin!
Marigold (Cleeve)
Loughborough, UK
