Service Details
- Branch of Service
- Army
- Conflict
- World War I (1914-1918)
- Date of Enlistment
- 09/09/1914
- Date of Discharge
- 02/10/1916
- Place of Enlistment
- Royal Military College, Duntroon ACT
Personal Details
- Gender
- Male
- Place of Birth
- Catford, Kent, England
- Address (at enlistment)
- Torrensville, South Australia (previously Duntroon ACT)
- Occupation
- Baker
- Next of Kin
- Harriett Burden (wife), Torrensville, South Australia
Unit and Rank Details
- Service Number
- 20
- Final Rank
- Private
- Final Unit
- HQ Staff 3 Brigade AIF
Notes
Ernest Burden was born in Catford, Kent in England in 1884. He had spent 12 years with the 4th Hussars and was a baker by trade. He arrived in Canberra in 1913 and was working as a groom at the Royal Military College, Duntroon when he enlisted 9 September 1914. He served on Gallipoli with the 3rd Brigade's Headquarter staff under Brigadier Sinclair-Maclagan. He was treated on Malta for lumbago and myalgia in October 1915 and then in Alexandria suffering with 'hysteria' after the evacuation from Gallipoli. He was invalided to Australia in April 1916 and discharged on 2 October 1916 with neurasthenia (generally known as shell shock). After the war he lived in Glenelg, South Australia. He died in Adelaide in 1972.
Description - height 5 feet 10 inches, weight 138 pounds, chest 33-36 inches, dark complexion, hazel eyes, dark brown hair, Church of England.
Sources
Ross Howarth, 'Civilians employed at the Royal Military College of Australia, Duntroon, from 1911 to 1931', RMC Duntroon, November 2000.
Queanbeyan Age - 28 July 1914
NAA RecordSearch - Series B2455 (First Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers, 1914-1920)
South Australia Births, Deaths & Marriages - www.genealogysa.org.au/resources/online-databases.html