Ernest was born on 16 December 1867, the son of William Theodore Doxford and Margaret Wilkinson, in Sunderland, County Durham. He was educated at Durham School, and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge He served in the engineering department of the firm and became manager in 1882. He married Bertha Eleanor Warner in 1892. He became a director in the firm in 1899.
Something like a sensation was caused by the announcement in 1919 that Doxfords had been purchased by the

 

Northumberland Shipbuilding Company, and that Mr. A. Ernest Doxford had retired from active participation in the business of the firm. The name of Doxford had for so long been synonymous with shipbuilding at Sunderland that the announcement created sad misgivings, but there was corresponding relief when it was known that the name of the famous concern at Pallion, was to remain unchanged and it's progressive policy continued.