Bartlett family

The Bartlett family was based in Plymouth, England. Thomas Bartlett and his wife Florence Emily Fortune had four sons, Alan, Edward, Richard and Jack. Thomas died during the flu epidemic in 1920 and his son Alan died of flu in 1926. During WWI Florence served as a nurse in Plymouth. The remaining Bartlett sons emigrated to Canada with their mother and settled in Ontario. All three sons served during WWII.

Ernest Henry Bartlett enrolled in the navy in England in the 1920s but influenza kept him from serving. Once in Canada he found work on a Great Lakes freighter before illness forced him to resign. He eventually found work as a journalist with the Toronto Telegram from 1924 to 1969, where he was the local expert on naval issues. He became the paper’s travel editor in 1962.

Ernest enlisted as a public relations officer and war correspondent with the Canadian navy in WWII. He filed news reports on the war effort in the Pacific and Atlantic.

On 14 August 1943, the motor torpedo boat that Bartlett was aboard was shelled in the Straits of Messina between Sicily and Calabria. He and his shipmates were captured and sent to a German POW camp in Marlag und Milag Nord. The camp was liberated 2 May 1946.

Jack Fortune Bartlett was also a war correspondent with the Toronto Telegram and the Galt Reporter in Cambridge, ON. During the war, he served with the Highland Light Infantry and was wounded in Holland. He later wrote a history of the Highland Light Infantry.

Richard Lear Bartlett served overseas in the 14th Canadian Army Tank Regiment.

2014/11/09 Anna St.Onge created authority file, drawing on biographical information available from news clippings, obituaries available in fonds.

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