| Ernie Schunke | |
| Fullname: | Ernest Wilfred Schunke[1] |
| Birth Date: | 26 October 1882 |
| Birth Place: | Carlton, Victoria |
| Death Place: | South Melbourne, Victoria |
| Originalteam: | Carlton Districts |
| Height: | 169 cm |
| Position: | Wing |
| Statsend: | 1909 |
| Years1: | 1909 |
| Club1: | Richmond |
| Games Goals1: | 6 (0) |
Ernest Wilfred Schunke (26 October 1882 – 6 November 1922) was an Australian rules footballer who played with Richmond in the Victorian Football League (VFL). He has the unusual distinction of having been a VFL umpire, before his VFL playing career.[2]
The son of August Henry Schunke (1850–1928),[3] a butcher,[4] and Elizabeth Schunke, née Coleman, Ernest grew up with three siblings, Charles Henry Schunke (1879–1924) who played for Carlton, Edwin James (1887–1974), and Rose Elizabeth Langstreth (1885–1940), née Schunke.[1]
He married Helena Francesca "Nellie" Spackman in 1913. They had two children: Joy and Ivy.[1]
Schunke was a boundary umpire for 11 games in the 1904 VFL season.[2] It was the year that the VFL introduced boundary umpires.[5]
Recruited by Richmond from Carlton Districts,[6] he played in the final six rounds of the 1909 VFL season.[7]
He was killed almost instantaneously in a work accident at the James Moore and Son's timber yards in South Melbourne on 6 November 1922,[8] when a cutting knife from a shaping machine, which had come loose, flew through the air and struck him just above the heart.[9] [10]