Kenora Great War Project

 

Personal Details
Date of BirthOctober 28, 1887
Place of BirthDorchester, New Brunswick
CountryCanada
Marital StatusMarried
Next of KinMartha Jane Marshman (wife), Dorchester, New Brunswick
Trade / CallingSteam engineer and lineman
ReligionBaptist
Service Details
Regimental Number832414
Service RecordLink to Service Record
Battalion145th Battalion
ForceCanadian Expeditionary Force
BranchCanadian Infantry
Enlisted / ConscriptedEnlisted
Place of EnlistmentDorchester, New Brunswick
Address at EnlistmentDorchester, New Brunswick
Date of EnlistmentMarch 1, 1916
Age at Enlistment28
Theatre of ServiceCanada
Prisoner of WarNo
Survived WarYes
Death Details
Date of DeathOctober 19, 1965
Age at Death77
Buried AtChapel Lawn Memorial Gardens, Winnipeg, Manitoba

Marshman, Ainsley Thomas

Private Ainsley Thomas Marshman enlisted in New Brunswick in March 1916 and served in Canada for six months. He was discharged for medical reasons in September 1916.

Ainsley was the youngest son of James Marshman and Julia Godfrey Bowser of Dorchester, Westmorland County, New Brunswick. He was born in Dorchester on 28 October 1887 and he had one older brother, James Roy, who was born in 1884. Their father was a sailor and he died when they were still very young. When the 1891 census was taken the two boys, aged 3 and 5, were living with their widowed mother. Not long after that their mother married Henry George Card and she had several more children with him.

Ainsley was married around 1912 to Martha Jane Arbing. Martha was born in 1892 in New Hampshire, U.S.A., When they married Ainsley was working as a stationary engineer. Their first child, Leonis Yvonne, was born in Dorchester in November 1913 and she was followed by a son James Christopher in January 1915. The war had started in August 1914 and Ainsley enlisted on 1 March 1916, signing up with the 145th (New Brunswick) Battalion. The unit was based in Moncton and recruited in Westmorland and Kent Counties. Ainsley was working as a stationary steam engineer and lineman at the time and he was married with two children. He said he had served for two years with the 74th Regiment (The Brunswick Rangers), a local militia unit.

The 145th Battalion was sent to Valcartier Camp in Quebec. Ainsley had a medical there in August and he was found to have defective vision which could not be improved with corrective lenses. He was honourably discharged on 12 September 1916 due to being medically unfit for service. His brother James Roy Marshman enlisted in the same battalion and he was with the unit when it sailed from Halifax in late September 1916.

Ainsley returned to Dorchester and his second daughter, Ruby Eileen, was born on 5 October 1916. The youngest child, Lloyd Ross, was born in Sackville in June 1918. Ainsley moved west after that and in the mid-1920s he was living at the YMCA in Winnipeg and working as a clerk. He spent some time in Kenora, Ontario, where he joined the local branch of the Canadian Legion in 1943. His family had moved to the U.S. and his son Lloyd served in the U.S. Navy for two years during the Second World War.

By the early 1960s Ainsley was retired and living in Winnipeg again. Ainsley, also known as Tommy, passed away in Princess Elizabeth Hospital on 19 October 1965, just before his 78th birthday. He is buried at Chapel Lawn Memorial Gardens in Winnipeg.

By Becky Johnson

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