Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Sapper Hughie Ernest Goodridge (Service No:WX34399) initially enlisted in the ACMF as a Sapper (Service No:W34526) with 22 Australian Army Field Coy and transferred within the unit to the AIF on 9 October 1942. Sapper Goodridge was Discharged on 27 October 1943. He had served with the Militia (11th Battalion) from 1932 to 1936.

Born in 1910 in Surrey England, Ern was the fourth of eleven children of Ernest Goodridge (b1882 in Surrey, England) and Caroline Lowder (b1883 in Kent, England). Ernest (a General Dealer) and Caroline married in 1900 in Kent, England, and immigrated in 1914 with five children, arriving in Fremantle on board the Australind - Ernest gave his occupation as Labourer. The family settled in Leederville, Perth where Ernest worked as a Fireman. He served briefly in WWI (Private; Service No:3837) - although he gave his birthplace as Toronto, Canada in his Attestation Papers. In the early 1920s Ernest was granted land at Bramley Siding nr Cowaramup under the Group 17 Settlement Scheme, and by 1929 the family had returned to Perth where they settled in Leederville and Ernest worked as a Storeman.

Ern was working as a Farm Hand in Toodyay, WA in 1936 when he married Lucille (Lucy) Margaret Fyfe (b1914 in Perth, WA) - they divorced in 1945. Ern worked in Toodyay as a Farm Hand, Bitumen Operator and Transport Driver prior to his enlistment, and was a Factory Hand and Bus Driver in Perth when he remarried Gwyneth Bramwell Prosser (b1920 in Cardiff, Wales) in 1946 in Perth. Ern and Gwyneth settled at Clackline via Northam where Ern was a Labourer. Ern died in 1993 and Gwyneth in 2003.