Have You a Tiger In Your Family?

Rank : Private

Army Number : 8710

Unit : 1st Bn, 2nd Bn

Biography :

Ernest Beaumont served for 153 days in 3rd (Cambridgeshire) Battalion The Suffolk Regiment (Territorial Force) from December 1908 before enlisting in the Regular Army at Leicester in The Leicestershire Regiment on 1.6.1909. He served in 1st Bn The Leicestershire Regiment in Shorncliffe and Aldershot from 1909 until joining 2nd Bn in India in 1911. In that Bn he arrived in France in October 1914. He was tried by Field General Court Martial (FGCM) on 15.1.1915 and sentenced to 9 months' Imprisonment with Hard Labour (IHL), subsequently commuted to 2 months' Field Imprisonment No 1, rejoining 2nd Bn on 11.3.1915. He was arrested for desertion at Rouen on 4.5.1915 having been absent from his unit since 15.3.1915. He was subsequently tried by FGCM for desertion and sentenced to "suffer death by being shot". He was executed by firing squad near Richebourg St. Vaast on 24.6.1915, aged 27 years. He is buried at St. Vaast Post Military Cemetery, Richebourg-L'Avoue, France.
His name is among those commemorated by the Shot at Dawn Memorial (photo), a monument at the National Memorial Arboretum near Alrewas, in Staffordshire, UK. It commemorates the 309 British Army and Commonwealth soldiers executed after courts-martial for desertion and other capital offences during World War One.
Along with the 308 other British Army soldiers shot for desertion and other capital offences, Joseph was eventually pardoned - in 2007. Britain was one of the last countries to withhold pardons for men executed during World War I. In 1993, the British Prime Minister John Major emphasised to the House of Commons that pardoning the men would be an insult to those who died honourably on the battlefield and that everyone was tried fairly. However, in August 2006 the then Defence Secretary of State for Defence, Des Browne, reversed this decision. He stated that he did not want "to second guess the decisions made by commanders in the field, who were doing their best to apply the rules and standards of the time", but that "it is better to acknowledge that injustices were clearly done in some cases, even if we cannot say which - and to acknowledge that all these men were victims of war." In 2007, the Armed Forces Act 2006 was passed allowing the soldiers to be pardoned posthumously, although Section 359(4) of the Act states that the pardon "does not affect any conviction or sentence."

Date of Birth : c1888

Place of Birth : St Giles, Cambridge

Date of Death : 24.6.1915

Place of Death : Richebourg St. Vaast, France

Civil Occupation : Labourer

Period of Service : 1910s-15

Conflicts : WW1

Places Served : India, France