Warren Addison Ash was born in February 1885 at Heaton Moor, Stockport and was the second of 4 children, with an elder sister, Gladys and younger brothers Luna (Lionel Ward d 1900) and Frederick Gordon. The family lived on Stanley Road, Heaton Moor in a well to do property with two house servants. Their father, Addison Ash, who worked as a commission agent, died in 1897. Shortly afterwards their widowed mother, Elizabeth Annie (nee Saunders) moved to Oswestry, which was her birthplace. Her father had been a chemist and seedsman with a shop on The Cross in Oswestry town centre. She lived on Edward Street and worked as a boarding house keeper.

Warren, meanwhile, was at boarding school at St Chad’s College, now Denstone College, Uttoxeter, Staffordshire. He left school in about 1902 and then seems to have gone to Manchester to study and work in electrical engineering, as an apprentice at the Cambrian Railway Works. In Manchester he joined 6 Bn Manchester Territorials based in Hulme, Cheshire in which he served for 2 years, until about 1910.

Warren Addison Ash, memorial pew St Thomas Anglican Church, Chilliwack

In June 1910 he emigrated to Canada, to Chilliwack near to Vancouver, British Colombia, where he worked for British Colombia Engineering as an electrical engineer. In 1912 his mother joined him living in Vancouver. Warren was a keen sportsman, played football (rugby) and tennis and in 1913 became secretary of the Chilliwack Lawn Tennis Club. There are various reports in the town newspaper, The Chilliwack Progress, of sports matches he had contested in; there is also an account of a mountain walking and climbing holiday he took to Elk Falls National Park on Vancouver Island.  He was an active member of the local church attending St Thomas’s Anglican Church. Here he is recorded on the Roll of Honour and has a memorial plaque on a pew. He is also recorded on Chilliwack War Memorial.

Warren enlisted on 23 September 1914 at Valcartier Quebec, joining 7 Bn Canadian Infantry (British Columbia Regiment). The battalion came over to England in October 1914 and began a training camp on Salisbury Plain. Within a few weeks Warren was taken ill. In a letter dated 13 November 1914, reported in the Chilliwack Progress, one of his fellow soldiers, Malcolm Macleod, wrote home – ‘that young fellow Ash, I was telling you about being sick, from our company, is not expected to live now. He has spinal meningitis. I feel it pretty hard as I liked him fine. He joined at Chilliwack and slept besides me in camp here until he took sick. I met his mother in Vancouver before we left. He is in hospital 14 miles away’.

Warren Addison Ash, Roll of Honour St Thomas Anglican Church, Chilliwack

(Malcolm Macleod, the letter writer, was KIA a victim of the gas attack on Canadian troops during Second Ypres, 1915)

In a similar letter, another soldier colleague, HM Shaw, wrote ‘ I am sorry to note that we have lost one of our comrades Mr W Ash who was well known by most of Chilliwack People’.

Warren died on 21 November 1914 of Meningitis at Salisbury Military Hospital. His body was transported to Oswestry for burial. The funeral, arranged by his brother Frederick, took place on 24 November 1914 at St Oswald’s Church, with military honours and a Union Jack draped coffin. It was presided over by the Rev Lutener, followed by a procession and internment at Oswestry Cemetery. Major Bull and Lieutenant Thomas represented the 7 Bn Canadian Infantry with wreaths from officers and men of H Company. He is commemorated on the war memorial in St Oswald’s Church as well as at St. Thomas Church in Chilliwack and on the War Memorial of the town. He also is recorded in the Canadian Book of Remembrance.

Acknowledgements. St Thomas’s Anglican Church, Chilliwack.  https://www.stthomaschilliwack.com/

References and Sources

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