John Edward Alfred Ansley was born on 7 September 1895 in Battersea. He was the second of at least eleven children of Alfred Ansley (1872-1948) and Mary Ansley née Quartley (1866-1945). His birth was registered in the 4th quarter 1895 in the Wandsworth registration district, London. On 17 June 1896 he was baptised at Christ Church, Battersea, and the baptismal register shows the family were living at 7 Ingrave Street, Battersea and his father was described as a porter.
The 1901 census confirms him living at 7 Ingrave Street, with his parents, three siblings: Dorothy May Ansley (b.1893); Evelyn Mary Ansley (1897-1976) and Ethel Victoria Ansley (1899-1984), together with his maternal aunt Jane Quartley (b.1879). His father was listed as a railway porter.
In the 1911 census he is shown as a Post Office messenger still residing at the five roomed property at 7 Ingrave Street with his parents, nine siblings: Dorothy who was listed as a restaurant counter hand; Evelyn; Ethel; Alice Mary Ansley (1901-1983); Berta Lucy Ansley (1903-1942); Celia Rose Ansley (1904-1958); Walter George Ansley (b.1905); Charles Frederick Ansley (1907-1979) and Herbert Oliver Ansley (1909-1940). His father continued to listed as a railway porter. His tenth sibling was Ivy Irene Sybella Ansley (1912-1988).
According to Post Office records he was appointed as an Assistant Postman in the London Postal Region in May 1912 and promoted to Telegraphist in March 1913. The Edinburgh Gazette states that after a Limited Competition he was appointed as a Post Office Male Learner on 2 April 1913.
He enlisted on 3 December 1914 in the Royal Marines, Service Number Deal/721/S and was attached to their Divisional Signals Company, Royal Naval Division, when he died of wounds, aged 19 years, on the 6 June 1915 at a casualty clearing station having been wounded in the head the previous day. He was buried in Skew Bridge Cemetery, Cape Helles, Gallipoli, Çanakkale, Turkey and as the precise location of his burial within the cemetery is unknown, he is commemorated there on Special Memorial B.34.
he was posthumously awarded the 1914-1915 Star, the British War Medal 1914-1918 and the Victory Medal.
He is also commemorated as Ansley, J. E. A. on the Western Postal District war memorial now located at Mount Pleasant, London, EC1; on page 12 of The Post Office Fellowship of Remembrance's Book of Remembrance 1914-1920; on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission's website and on the Imperial War Museum's Lives of the First World War website.
Credit for this entry to: Andrew Behan.
