Second Lieutenant, Royal Berkshire Regiment, 5th Battalion
Killed in action on 30 November 1917, aged 24
Remembered at Cambrai Memorial, Louveral, Nord, France
Information from the censuses
In 1911 Clapham-born Ernest Arthur Inns Wykes, then 17, lived at 42 Elms Road, Clapham, with his father, William, 63, a solicitor originally from Great Billing in Northamptonshire; mother Ada Fanny Wykes, 56, from Old Kent Road, south-east London; brother Herbert Ivie Wykes, 27, a surveyor, born in Brixton; and sister Evelyn Elizabeth Inns Wykes, 25, born in Brixton. Jessie May Skillern, 25, a domestic servant born in Clapham, lived with the family.
The 1901 census shows that there was an elder brother, Edward W. Wykes, a solicitor's clerk, born in Lambeth. He was 29 in 1911.
There is a memorial plaque dedicated to Herbert Ivie Wykes, who died in 1916 at Rouen, in St Peter's Church, Clapham Manor Street. It was erected by Herbert's "Parents Brothers and Sister", and so was probably commissioned between September 1916 and Ernest's own death in November 1917.
Other details
Baptism: 14 Jun 1893 - Clapham Holy Trinity, Surrey
William Wykes (1847 – 1938)
Ada Fanny Wykes nee Cutler (1854 – 1936)
The Straits Times, 31 January 1918: E. A. I. Wykes, Berkshires. Died of wounds.
Very useful website on the history of the Royal Berkshire Regiment: http://www.purley.eu/H14.htm