1885 - 1916
CPL David Wallace Crawford
1887 - 1916
Lce-Corpl John Joseph Nickle
1894 - 1916
Pte 17911 Morton Neill
1897 - 1916
Lieut Edward Stanley Ashcroft
1883 - 1918
Pte 15237 Ellis Mather
- Age: 25
- From: Cheltenham, Glos
- Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 17th Btn
- K.I.A Monday 10th July 1916
- Commemorated at: Thiepval Memorial
Panel Ref: P&F1D8B &8 C.
Ellis Mather was born on 18th April, 1891, in Cheltenham, the son of Arthur Mather and his wife Ethel Madeline (nee Willis). His father, born in Liverpool, was the son of a gentleman of considerable means. He was educated privately and at Lincoln College, Oxford. He spent a large part of his time devoted to church work, and to his recreations of gardening and hunting (he belonged to the Cotswold Hunt and rode regularly to hounds). He was a church warden and treasurer of the church missionary society. His mother, born in Berkshire, was the daughter of the Rector of Bessingbam, Lincolnshire. They married in Northamptonshire in 1878 and had thirteen children, all born in Cheltenham, seven sons: William, Charles, Horace, Oswald, John Kearsley, Ellis and Robert, and six daughters: Ethel, Madeline, Evelyn, Kathleen, Edith, and Mildred. All the sons were educated at Cheltenham College and the daughters at Cheltenham Ladies’ College.
He was educated at Cheltenham College between the years 1902 and 1909.
After his education he was in business in Liverpool with his brother Robert.
He was a keen sportsman and took a great interest in local athletics and was a member of Liverpool Cricket and Rugby Club.
He enlisted at St George's Hall in Liverpool on 31st August 1914 on the same day as his brother Robert (Private No 15161) for service in the 17th Battalion, The King’s Liverpool Regiment. He served as Private No 15237.
He was billeted at Prescot Watch Factory from 14th September 1914, he trained there and also at Knowsley Hall. On 30th April 1915 the 17th Battalion alongside the other three Pals battalions left Liverpool via Prescot Station for further training at Belton Park, Grantham. They remained here until September 1915 when they reached Larkhill Camp on Salisbury Plain.
Ellis arrived in France, attached to A Company on the 07th November 1915.
He was in the machine-gun section and was killed in action between the 10 -12th July 1916 during attempts by his Battalion to take Trones Wood, during the battle of the Somme.
The murderous fighting that went on inside Trones Wood rendered it impossible to put specific dates on some of the casualties. The conditions are best described in the following passage from Everard Wyrall’s book The History of The King’s Regiment (Liverpool) Volume II.
The remembrance of Trones Wood in July 1916 to those who passed through it is of a noisome, horrible place, of a tangled mass of trees and undergrowth which had been tossed and flung about in frightful confusion by the shells of both sides. Of the ghastly dead which lay about in all directions, and of DEATH, lurking in every hole and corner with greedy hands ready to snatch the lives of the unwary. The place was Death trap, and although the attacks were made with great determination, the presence of snipers who could not be detected and often fired into the backs of our men made the clearing of the wood impossible.
“Killed in action, on 11 July, Private Ellis Mather (O.C.) [Old Cheltonian], Machine Gun Section, King’s (Liverpool) Regiment, sixth son of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Mather, of Avonhill, Cheltenham.”
“News has arrived to the effect that Private Ellis Mather, of the King’s Liverpool Regiment has been killed in action. He was the sixth son of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Mather, of Avonhill, Cheltenham, and was 25 years of age. He was educated at Cheltenham College where he was in the Cricket XI and the Football XV, and afterwards went into business in Liverpool. His brother, Lieut. John Kearsley Mather, of the York and Lancaster Regt., was killed in action on Feb 18, 1915, also at the age of 25.”
“News has been received of the death in action of Private Ellis Mather, a well known and popular member of the Liverpool Cotton Exchange. He was the fifth (sic) son of Mr. Arthur Mather, of Cheltenham, and was a machine gunner in the "Pals." The association with Liverpool of the Mather family has been long and honourable dating, in fact, from the time when the port was a centre for slave trading. Private Mather took a great interest in local athletics, and was a member of the Liverpool Cricket and Rugby Clubs. He was one of the first men to enlist in the "Pals" being enrolled on August 31,1914. Although several times offered a commission, he had steadfastly refused to be anything but a ranker.”
His body was eventually recovered on the 30th September and reported by the Officer Commanding 1st North Staffs Regiment as having been buried, but the place of burial was afterwards lost and therefore Ellis has no known grave and is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme.
The Thiepval Memorial, the Memorial to the Missing of the Somme, bears the names of more than 72,000 officers and men of the United Kingdom and South African forces who died in the Somme sector before 20 March 1918 and have no known grave. Over 90% of those commemorated died between July and November 1916.
On 01st August 1932 the Prince of Wales and the President of France inaugurated the Thiepval Memorial in Picardy. The inscription reads: “Here are recorded the names of officers and men of the British Armies who fell on the Somme battlefields between July 1915 and March 1918 but to whom the fortune of war denied the known and honoured burial given to their comrades in death.”
There is a photograph of him as a member of Cheltenham College Rugby Team in "The Graphic" of the 20th February 1909. His two brothers Robert and John (q.v.) were also killed in the war.
Lieutenant John Kearsley Mather was born in Cheltenham on the 25th January 1890, the fifth son of Arthur Mather and Ethel Madeline, daughter of The Reverend Charles Francis Willis. He attended Cheltenham College between 1902 and 1908 from where he was accepted at the Royal Military College Sandhurst, and gazetted a Second Lieutenant in the York and Lancaster Regiment on the 18th September 1909. He joined the 1st Battalion at Quetta, India in December of that year and served there for five years, being promoted Lieutenant in 1911 and returning home with the Regiment in December 1914. Posted to France, he was in the Ypres sector when he was killed by shellfire at Verbrandmolen, Belgium and buried nearby. His grave was later lost and he is commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial and in the chapel of the Military College. There is a photograph of him in "The Graphic" of the 27th February 1915.
2nd Lieutenant Robert Mather was killed in action with the 17th Battalion on 27th March 1918 his body was not recovered and he is commemorated on the Pozieres Memorial in France.
Three other brothers, Horace, Oswald and William also served and survived.
His mother died in 1942 aged 83.
Christchurch Roll of Honour
Also on the headstone of their father in Cheltenham Borough Cemetery.
We currently have no further information on Ellis Mather. If you have or know someone who may be able to add to the history of this soldier, please contact us.
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