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187103 8th Battalion, Canadian Infantry (Manitoba Regiment)
Bernard Mattingly was born on 21 April 1886 in Great Cornard. He was the son of Robert and Gertrude Emma Mattingly. His father was a Justice of the Peace and Mayor of Sudbury five times between 1883 and 1905.
His father owned Mattingly’s, a gentleman’s outfitters shop at 41–42 Market Hill in Sudbury. (The building was destroyed by fire in 2015 but is being rebuilt in the same style). By 1891 the family was living in Great Cornard, along with three servants and Bernard was at boarding school in Hadham Road in Bishop’s Stortford. In 1904 he left England for Canada where he was employed in farming and land surveying. At the outbreak of war he enlisted with the Winnipeg Rifles. Before the battalion left Canada it was inspected by the Duke of Connaught. He singled out Bernard, who was over 6ft tall as ‘the finest physical specimen of a man in the ranks.’
The battalion saw action at the Battle of Vimy Ridge and Bernard, who was in the machine gun section, was killed in action aged 31 on 29 April 1917. There is no known grave and he is remembered on the Vimy Memorial, Pas de Calais, France.
Bernard is remembered in the Books of Remembrance in the Memorial Chamber, the Peace Tower, Parliament Buildings in Ottawa, Canada. He is also remembered on Baptist Church Memorial in Church Street, Sudbury.
A Cross of Remembrance was laid at the Vimy Memorial in April 2007 and March 2014.
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