Ernest Walter Hastings (15 June 1879 – 2 September 1940) was an English singer, pianist, composer and performer of comic monologues.

He also played piano, and developed a talent for mimicry and monologues which led him to a theatrical career in music halls before 1900.

[3] In the First World War, he performed songs both in support of recruitment, such as "We're All Plain Civilians" (with lyrics by Foden Williams, 1914),[3] and critical of the apparent impossibility of escaping conscription, in songs such as "Exemptions and Otherwise" and "The Military Representative", written by R. P. Weston and Bert Lee (1916), in which the military recruitment tribunal approves for active service "a series of ever more unsuitable candidates".

[5] His other songs and monologues included "The Bolshevik" (written by Lee and Weston, 1919), and "Seaside Posters Round the Home" (by Edgar Bateman and Henry E. Pether, 1919).

[8] Hastings appeared in the 1919 Royal Variety Performance, and toured the vaudeville circuit in Australia in 1925 with J. Milton Hayes.