Ernest William Hamblyn was born in Plymouth, Devon, England on 22 November 1865, later being baptised on 21 July 1868 in Holy Trinity and St Saviour Church. 

The eldest of six children, he was the son of William Harper Hamblyn (1840-1932), a tailor, and Cecilia Bawden (1841-1905), Devon-natives who had married in Stonehouse in 1862.

Ernest’s five siblings were: Laura Jane (b. 1867), Annie Maud (b. 1870), George Stanley (b. 1873), Celia (b. 1876) and James Edgar (b. 1878).

Ernest first appears on the 1871 census when he and his family lived in Adelaide Street in East Stonehouse, Devon. The family moved to Southampton around 1873 and appear on the 1881 census as living at 2 Compton Walk, St Mary. Ernest had already left school and was then working as an apprentice to an organ builder. Ernest was not present on the 1891 census, perhaps at sea, when his family lived at 14 St Mary's Road, Southampton.

Hamblyn was married later in 1891 to Sophia Lilly Swan－known as Lily－(b. 1868), a domestic servant originally from Aldershot, the daughter of Suffolk-born grocer James Swan and the former Caroline Attwood, a native of Andover. 

Ernest and Lily would have seven children: Percy George (1892-1964), twins Ernest (1895-1972) and William (1895-1976), Gladys Lilian (1898-1982, later Mrs Thomas W. Thorne), Laura Cecilia (1902-1907), Archibald James (1905-1975) and Stanley Arthur (1907-1984).

On the 1901 census, Ernest and his family were living at 2 Dyers Road, Shirley, and he was described as a marine storekeeper. Although absent from the 1911 census, Hamblyn’s family were shown living at 2 Norman Villas, Dyer Road, Freemantle.

When he signed on to the Titanic on 4 April 1912, Hamblyn gave his address as 2 Norman Villas, Dyer Road, Southampton. His previous ship had been the Olympic, and as a bedroom steward, he received monthly wages of £3 15s.

Ernest Hamblyn died in the sinking, and his body, if recovered, was never identified.

He is remembered on an elaborate cross and anchor-shaped headstone in Southampton Old Cemetery (section B169, plot 74). The inscription reads:

IN LOVING MEMORY OF
ERNEST WILLIAM
THE BELOVED HUSBAND OF
LILY HAMBLYN
WHO WAS LOST AT SEA THROUGH
THE FOUNDERING OF THE S.S. TITANIC
ON APRIL 15th 1912 AGED 40 YEARS

His estate, valued at £320, was administered not to his widow but to Henry Archibald Bayley Jamieson (1870-1935), a journalist and the husband of his sister Laura Jane.

Hamblyn’s sons Percy (left) and Ernest as young seafarers

Ernest's widow never remarried and died in Winchester in 1939 aged 70. Several of his sons followed in his footsteps to work at sea; his last surviving child, Stanley, died in Southampton in 1984.