Harrogate Herald - 24th October 1917

Roll of Honour

Private W Ellerker (West Yorks), of 15 Powell Street, Harrogate, and son of Mrs Ellerker, of 13 Blossomgate, Ripon, who is a prisoner of war, has had a chequered war experience. He went out to the Front in September, 916, and was two or three times in hospital suffering from shell-shock. In March last he was invalided home, but went back again to France in June. About a fortnight after he had sent word he was in the trenches, and then nothing was heard of him until his mother wrote to his Commanding Officer after he had been missing five or six weeks. His Captain replied that he might be a prisoner of war, and on the 23rd August Ellerker's wife received news that he was a prisoner (wounded) at Ohrdruf, Thurringen. The Captain says : "Our trenches were raided on the night of July 23rd, and after the Bosches had withdrawn your son was missing. I am told that your son made a gallant fight before being overpowered".

Mrs Ellerker has two other sons in the Army. The second, Senior Sapper R J Ellerker, RE, went to Salonica on January 1st, 1917. About three months ago he had dysentery, and was ill six weeks. After being up on the line a week he was brought back with malaria, and is now in hospital in Macedonia suffering from that fever. The third son, Private Harry Ellerker, is in the Coldstream Guards, and went out to France in September, 1916. He has seen a good deal of fighting, having been in the latest battle in Flanders, and "had another good smash at the Hun". He was wounded last Christmas, and after being in hospital a month in France he had to return for seven weeks through sickness.