Ernest Thomas Isaac Ashmore was born in Warwick on 20 July 1883 and baptised at All Saints, Emscote, on 15 September 1881, the son of Thomas and Ellen Ashmore.  His father was a railway engine driver and the family lived in Humphris Street, Warwick.

Ernest enlisted in the Royal Navy in 1902 as a Stoker. His first ship was the cruiser HMS CRESCENT on the Cape Station. He joined the submarine HMS H5 on 1 April 1917.

He married Lucy Sarah Green on 4th July 1914, at St. Nicholas Church, Kenilworth, when his occupation is given as Coastguard at Dungeness, Lydd, Kent. Their daughter Ivy was born in 1915.

He is commemorated on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial Panel 30 and the Warwickshire War Memorial at Kenilworth.