Ernest Charles Cann was born in the village of Chapel Amble in the parish of St Kew near Wadebridge, Cornwall in 1883. He was the son of William Cann (labourer)and Sarah Jane Cann. (Sarah was 27 years younger than her husband and had been widowed shortly prior to 1880).
The 1881 census shows the couple and her daughter, Mary Ann Teague living in Chapel Amble.
The family were at Tregilders in St Kew parish according to the 1891 census and Ernest Cann is shown aged 8 along with his brothers, Albert and Edward and step-sister, Mary Ann.
Ernest's father, William Cann dies sometime following the 1891 census and the April 1901 census shows that the family had moved away from Cornwall and were living in the village of Frampton Cotterell, Gloucestershire.
At Coalpit Heath, Frampton Cotterell Ernest's mother was running a lodging house. Along with her 4 offspring at the house there were 5 boarders, they were all described as 'navvies on the railway'.
Ernest was to return to Cornwall and by 1911 he had settled at Treverbyn, a small village to the north of St Austell, the heart of china clay quarrying country where he worked as a labourer.
He married Emmie Johns in the November of 1911 at Treverbyn parish church and reports of 1912 suggest that by then he had a young child.