A former railway platelayer, Ernest grew the plants and tended the displays at Lewes station from around
1911.
Ernest was born in Lewes in 1870. He’d worked as a platelayer and was a gardener by the age of 21, and
was lodging in Framfield with a couple of other gardeners. Aged 27 he married farmer’s widow Mary Ann
Harding, gaining three step-children and they would have three more together. By 1901 the family of 8 were
living at 6 Eastport Lane, Lewes looking across Southover Grange gardens and Ernest was working for a
time as a carpenter’s labourer. In 1911, at the same address, Ernest was the nurseryman for LB&SCR and a
member of the railway company’s St John’s Ambulance department.
Sadly Mary Ann died in 1915, aged 47. By 1921 Ernest was Lewes station’s gardener, and still living in the
same house. However, he remarried in 1924 to Louisa Underwood. He died in 1933, aged 63.
Ernest had long been a member of the Ancient Order of Foresters, one of the oldest Friendly Societies
who ‘shared a duty to assist their fellow men who fell into need’. Members paid a few pence a week into
a common fund to be able to offer sick pay and funeral grants. They had set up the first voluntary Lifeboat
Fund in 1864, and by 1912 became an ‘approved society’ in the early state system of National Insurance.
It’s likely that Ernest’s funeral was funded by the Society, and who was represented at the service by a Mr
Coleman.
