The men below are listed on the Second World War memorial in St Matthew's Church, and this is what we've found out about them so far. We have also included two other men who aren't on the memorial – Joseph Piddington and Charles Webb – but who we think should be. If you know more about any of them, please
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Image courtesy of Steve Ayres. |
Lived at 34 Lincoln Road, New Hinksey.
Private with the 1st Battalion of the Ox & Bucks Light Infantry, service no. 5385925.
Buried at Ranville War Cemetery, Normandy, France. |
Ken Ayres's grandparents, and later his parents, ran the Farriers Arms pub at the far southern end of the Abingdon Road. Ken worked as a lorry driver before the war; he and his younger brother Gordon both served, Ken in the army and Gordon in the RAF. Ken is commemorated on the war memorials of all three churches in South Oxford: St Matthew’s, St Luke’s in Cold Harbour, and St John the Evangelist in New Hinksey.
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Image from the Oxford Mail, 17 February 1945. |
His family lived at 39 Canning Crescent, Cold Harbour,
Private with the 1st Battalion of the Ox & Bucks Light Infantry, service no. 5389232.
Buried at Jonkerbos War Cemetery, near Nijmegen, Holland. |
Horace Bannister was the son of a baker; both his parents had been widowed young and he had six older step- and half-siblings. He was brought up in Radley, a village a few miles south of Oxford; later his family moved to South Oxford. As a young man Horace lived in Gloucester and worked as a shoe salesman. In 1940 he married Lillian Steer; later in the war he joined the Ox & Bucks Light Infantry. He died of wounds just three months before the end of the war, as his battalion were pushing into Germany from southern Holland.
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 Image from the Oxford Mail, 28 April 1943. |
Lived at 28 Gordon Street, New Hinksey.
Gunner with the 144th Battery, 35th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery, service no. 1523727.
Commemorated on the Singapore Memorial, Kranji War Cemetery, Singapore. |
Ted Boswell worked as a test driver at Morris Motors and was married with three young children when he joined the 35th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment in around 1940. He was initially deployed in defending local RAF bases from air attacks but in 1941 he and his regiment sailed to Singapore, where they were taken prisoner by the Japanese. Ted and another of our 24 Men of Grandpont and Cold Harbour, Ernest Finch, were killed in the infamous Ballalae Massacre.
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Image from the Oxford Mail, 11 February 1942. |
Lived at 32 Pitt Road (now Chatham Road), Cold Harbour.
Lance Corporal with the Ox & Bucks Light Infantry, seconded to No. 12 Commando, service no. 5384691.
Buried at Rose Hill Cemetery, Oxford. |
Eric Bowles was born in Minster Lovell but brought up in South Oxford. He attended school in New Hinksey and was a keen footballer. He was apprenticed to Lucy & Co, the iron foundry in Jericho, and joined the Ox & Bucks Light Infantry in May 1939, when he was eighteen. As a member of the Territorial Army, he was called up immediately when war broke out four months later. He was fatally injured when the trawler that he was patrolling in was attacked by enemy aircraft.
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Leslie Boyles's gravestone at Botley Cemetery in Oxford. Image from Find a Grave. |
Lived at 42 Marlborough Road, Grandpont, and later at 194 Botley Road.
Driver with the Royal Army Service Corps, service no. T/98466.
Buried at Botley Cemetery, Oxford. |
Leslie Boyles was born in Haslemere, Surrey, but spent his childhood and early adult life in Oxford, partly in Grandpont. At the outbreak of war he enlisted as a driver with the Royal Army Service Corps, driving both motorcycles and cars. He saw service in France and took part in the retreat to Dunkirk in May 1940. He returned to Britain and worked as a motorcycle despatch rider. He died on his way back from a routine delivery run.
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Image from the Oxford Mail, 23 January 1942. |
Lived at 3 Hurst Rise, Cumnor Hill, North Hinksey.
Sergeant (Wireless Operator / Air Gunner) with 240 Squadron, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, service no. 1176410.
Buried at St Magnus's churchyard, Hamnavoe, Yell, Shetland. |
Albert Roland Breakspear (known as Roland and recorded as 'R Breakspear' on the St Matthew's memorial) was a member of the 1st Oxford Boys’ Brigade Company which was based at St Matthew's Church in Grandpont. Before joining the Royal Air Force he trained as a wireless operator with the General Post Office, and during the war he served on flying-boats in Coastal Command, based at Lough Erne, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. It was on a mission in 1942 that his flying-boat crashed in the Shetlands and Roland and six of his crew mates were killed.
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Edward Percival BUTTRUM-GARDINER 
Eddie Buttrum-Gardiner in RAF uniform. Image courtesy of Rod Andrews; click here to see the whole photo. |
Lived at 38 Weirs Lane, Cold Harbour.
Sergeant (Air Gunner) with 218 (Gold Coast) Squadron, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, service no. 1851287.
Buried at Leopoldsburg (British) War Cemetery, Limburg, Belgium. |
In civilian life Edward Buttrum-Gardiner (known as Eddie, and wrongly recorded as 'R Buttram-Gardener' on the St Matthew's memorial) was a welder-fitter at Morris Radiators (off the Woodstock Road). He had six younger sisters. During the war he joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve and was stationed at Chedburgh in Suffolk. He and five of his six crew mates were killed when their Lancaster bomber was hit by American 'friendly fire' over Belgium.
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Kenneth Cole as a prisoner of war (PoW) at Lamsdorf Camp (Stalag VIII B), 1940. Image from his PoW records on www.ancestry.co.uk. |
Born and brought up at 88 Marlborough Road, Grandpont.
Private with the 4th Battalion of the Ox & Bucks Light Infantry, service no. 5384698.
Buried at Krakow Rakowicki Cemetery, Poland. |
Kenneth Cole was a postman who joined the Territorial Army in May 1939, and took part in the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940. He was captured and died in a prisoner of war camp in Poland. Together with Maurice Goddard (below), who also worked for the Post Office, he is named on the Oxford Post Office Second World War memorial which is in the sorting office in Oxpens.
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Image from HMS Jervis Bay. |
Lived at 14 Canning Crescent, Cold Harbour.
Able Seaman with the Royal Navy / Royal Fleet Reserve, HMS Jervis Bay, service no. C/J 93254.
Commemorated on the Chatham Naval Memorial, Kent. |
As a young man Reginald Collins was in the Royal Navy. In civilian life he was an assistant porter at Rhodes House in Oxford. During the Second World War he served with the Royal Fleet Reserve. He was one of the 190 men (out of 255) who died when HMS Jervis Bay was sunk on 5 November 1940, following an epic battle in the North Atlantic. Reginald is also commemorated on the memorial in the church of St John the Evangelist in New Hinksey.
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Dennis Comley's grave in the Hotton War Cemetery, Belgium. Image from Find a Grave. |
Lived at 129 Marlborough Road, Grandpont.
Private with the 4th Battalion of the Ox & Bucks Light Infantry, service no. 5387033.
Buried at Hotton War Cemetery, Belgium. |
The memorial in St Matthew’s Church lists a ‘B Comley’. However, there is no trace of a ‘B Comley’ living in South Oxford immediately prior to the Second World War. The memorial in St Matthew’s was installed in 1948; it is likely that errors crept in, and that Dennis Comley was incorrectly inscribed as ‘B Comley’. Dennis's father served in the First World War and Dennis served in the same regiment during the Second World War.
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Image from Find a Grave; see the whole picture here. |
Lived at 26 Western Road, Grandpont.
Sergeant (Wireless Operator / Air Gunner) with 78 Squadron, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, service no. 1315406.
Buried at Reichswald Forest War Cemetery, Kleve, Germany. |
Christopher Daft was born in Oxford in 1922, the youngest of three brothers. His father served in the First World War and later worked as a musician and a labourer. The family lived in a three-storey house in Western Road; as well as the family, Christopher's mother looked after a variety of lodgers and boarders. Christopher was in the RAF during the war, and was killed when his Halifax bomber was shot down by a German night-fighter.
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Deryck Drew in 1937, aged eighteen. Image from The Changing Faces of South Oxford and South Hinksey, Book 1, by Carole Newbigging. |
Lived at 16 Edith Road, Grandpont.
Pilot Officer with 59 Squadron, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, service no. 79539.
Buried at Ste Marie Cemetery, Le Havre, France. |
Deryck Drew worked as a clerk in the bursary at Exeter College, Oxford; before the war he joined the RAF's Volunteer Reserve. He did his initial flying training at Kidlington aerodrome, and qualified as a pilot in May 1940. He died less than three months later, on a flight searching for the crew of another aircraft which had failed to return to base the day before.
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Image from the Oxford Mail, 8 September 1943. |
Lived at 228 Marlborough Road, Grandpont.
Private with the 1st Battalion of the Hampshire Regiment, service no. 5506871.
Buried at Syracuse War Cemetery on Sicily. |
John English was born at 228 Marlborough Road and lived there until he joined the army during the Second World War. Like his father John and younger brother Norman he worked in the printing industry, and he was a well-known footballer. As a member of the 1st Battalion of the Hampshire Regiment he took part in the ultimately successful invasion of Sicily, but lost his life doing so.
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Ernest Finch's name on Column 18 of the Singapore Memorial in Kranji War Cemetery, fourteen miles north of the city of Singapore. Image courtesy of Andrew and Brenda Wee. |
Lived at 24 Weirs Lane, Cold Harbour.
Gunner with the 89th Battery, 35th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery, service no. 1486474.
Commemorated on the Singapore Memorial, Kranji War Cemetery, Singapore. |
Ernest Finch was born in St Ebbe's into a large family. By the outbreak of war in 1939, he and his widowed father and two youngest sisters were living in Weirs Lane in Cold Harbour, at the far southern end of the Abingdon Road. Ernest joined the 35th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment and was initially deployed in defending local RAF bases from air attacks. In 1941 he and his regiment sailed to Singapore, where they were taken prisoner by the Japanese. Ernest and another of our 24 Men of Grandpont and Cold Harbour, Edward Boswell, were killed in the infamous Ballalae Massacre.
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Maurice Goddard’s name on Southfield School’s Second World War memorial (now in the library of Oxford Spires Academy). Image courtesy of Oxford Spires Academy. |
Lived at 37 Edith Road, Grandpont.
Driver with the Royal Army Service Corps, service no. T/221952.
Commemorated at the Tobruk War Cemetery, Tobruk, Al Buṭnān, Libya. |
Like his father, Maurice Goddard worked for the Post Office. In his spare time he was secretary of the Oxford branch of the Cyclists Touring Club, and a prominent member of the Youth Hostels Association. During the war he was deployed to Libya, and died in February 1942, soon after the Siege of Tobruk. Both he and Kenneth Cole (above) are named on the Oxford Post Office Second World War memorial in the sorting office in Oxpens.
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Herbert Hacksley's photograph on the war memorial in St Aldates Police Station, Oxford. Image courtesy of John Stobbs. |
Lived at 3 Whitehouse Road, Grandpont.
Leading Aircraftman with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, service no. 1320081.
Buried at Miami (Grand Army of the Republic) Cemetery, Oklahoma, USA. |
Herbert Hacksley was an Oxford City policeman. During the war he served with the RAF Volunteer Reserve, and was sent to America to train as a pilot. He was based at the Spartan School of Aeronautics in Miami, Ottawa County, Oklahoma, and was one of fifteen young British airmen killed whilst training there.
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Image from the Oxford Mail, 10 March 1945. |
Lived at 40 Fox Crescent, Cold Harbour.
Private with the 2nd (Airborne) Battalion of the Ox & Bucks Light Infantry, service no. 5381332.
Buried in the churchyard of Périers-en-Auge, near Caen, Normandy, France. |
William Hedges was born and brought up in St Ebbe's but his family later moved to Cold Harbour, at the far southern end of the Abingdon Road. He joined the army in 1932, when he was eighteen. During the war he flew gliders, and took part in the D-Day landings of June 1944. He was involved in the famous Pegasus Bridge operation, which resulted in the villagers of Ranville being the first civilians in France to be liberated. However, William lost his life in the process.
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Alan Martin's name on Column 25 of the Singapore Memorial in Kranji War Cemetery, fourteen miles north of the city of Singapore. Image courtesy of Andrew and Brenda Wee. |
His family lived at 31 Whitehouse Road, Grandpont.
Gunner with the 7 Coast Regiment, Royal Artillery, service no. 11054574.
Commemorated on the Singapore Memorial, Kranji War Cemetery, Singapore. |
Alan Martin grew up on a large country estate in Somerset, where his father was a member of the household staff of Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Lyle (scion of the sugar company which became Tate & Lyle). After his father died young, Alan was sent away to boarding school in Hampshire. Thereafter he joined the Post Office. Around the same time, his mother and younger siblings moved to Grandpont in Oxford. Alan was a Gunner in the Royal Artillery. After the fall of Singapore the ship on which he was traveling was torpedoed; he was listed as missing.
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Image from the Oxford Mail, 13 July 1940. |
Lived at 9 Bertie Place, Cold Harbour.
Private with the 4th Battalion of the Ox & Bucks Light Infantry, service no. 5383306.
Buried in the churchyard at Bavinchove, near Cassel, northern France. |
Fred Molyneux was born and brought up in St Aldates, but his family seem to have had a long-standing connection with St Matthew's in Grandpont. Before the war they moved to Cold Harbour, at the far southern end of the Abingdon Road. Fred was one of seven children, but by the time he was seventeen, three of his brothers and both of his parents had died.
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George Morrison's name on column 93 of the Dunkirk Memorial, northern France. |
Lived at 273 Abingdon Road, Cold Harbour.
Private with the 4th Battalion of the Ox & Bucks Light Infantry, service no. 5384773.
Commemorated on the Dunkirk Memorial, northern France. |
George Morrison was born in Surrey but his family moved to Oxfordshire when he was a child, and eventually to Cold Harbour, South Oxford. His father Richard ran Morrison's, one of the two motor garages on Lake Street in New Hinksey. George died soon after the German invasion of France, when the lorry convoy he was travelling in was bombed.
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Joseph Piddington's Commonwealth War Grave at Wolvercote Cemetery. Image courtesy of Mark Hathaway. |
Lived at 163 Marlborough Road, Grandpont.
Private with the 4th Battalion of the Ox & Bucks Light Infantry and later with the 8th (Home Defence) Battalion of the Royal Berkshire Regiment (Princess Charlotte of Wales's), service no. 5376175.
Buried at Wolvercote Cemetery, Oxford. |
Joseph Piddington was one of the 'The Old Contemptibles', soldiers of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) who served in France and Flanders in the early months of First World War, and survived. Subsequently he was probably one of the few Old Contemptibles to return to France with the BEF during the Second World War. He died at home in Grandpont fifteen months after the end of the war. His name doesn't appear on the memorial in St Matthew’s Church, but we feel that it should; the fact that he has a Commonwealth War Grave at Wolvercote Cemetery means that he was considered at the time to have been a casualty of the war.
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Image from the Oxford Mail, 28 June 1944. |
Lived at 9 Canning Crescent, Cold Harbour.
Rifleman with the 2nd Battalion of the Rifle Brigade (The Prince Consort's Own), service no. 5383328.
Buried at Bolsena War Cemetery, Provincia di Viterbo, Lazio, central Italy. |
Henry 'Chick' Sawyer was born in St Ebbe's, one of seven siblings; his family later moved to Cold Harbour at the far southern end of the Abingdon Road. His father died when Henry was fifteen. During the war, Henry enlisted with the Ox & Bucks Light infantry but later transferred to the Rifle Brigade. His battalion went to Italy following the Allied invasion of the Italian mainland in September 1943, and Henry was killed during fighting between Allied and German troops near Lake Bolsena in the province of Viterbo. Three of his brothers also fought in the war.
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Image courtesy of Les Shepperd's cousin Mike Harrison. |
Lived at 100 Marlborough Road, Grandpont.
Leading Seaman with the Royal Navy, HMS Penelope, service no. P/JX 311742.
Commemorated on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial, Hampshire. |
Les Shepperd was born and brought up in Grandpont. He was a keen footballer and swimmer, and a member of the Boys Brigade. After leaving school he worked as a wages clerk at the Pressed Steel factory in Cowley. During the war he joined the Navy and served on HMS Penelope; the ship was sunk off the coast of Italy in February 1944, with the loss of two thirds of the crew.
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Frederick Thompson's photograph on the war memorial in St Aldates Police Station, Oxford. Image courtesy of John Stobbs. |
Lived at 45 South Parade, Summertown, Oxford.
Sergeant with 502 (Ulster) Squadron, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, service no. 1159188.
Commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial, near Englefield Green, Surrey. |
It's not clear how Thomas Frederick Thompson (known as Frederick) came to be commemorated on the memorial in St Matthew’s Church in Grandpont. Both his father and his maternal grandfather were police constables, and he spent part of his childhood in the Southern Provincial Police Orphanage in Surrey. He was a clerk for the Oxford police force, but didn’t live in South Oxford. |
Cap badge of the 4th Battalion of the Ox & Bucks Light Infantry. |
Lived at 82 Chilswell Road, Grandpont.
Sergeant with the 4th Battalion of the Ox & Bucks Light Infantry, service no. 5377164.
Buried at Lille Southern Cemetery, northern France. |
Charles Webb was born in London but grew up in West Oxfordshire. As a young man he worked as a gardener at Broughton Hall near Carterton, and served in the army for seven years. Later he became an underporter at Corpus Christi College in Oxford. He joined the Territorial Army five months before the outbreak of the Second World War. His name doesn’t appear on the St Matthew’s war memorial but we feel that it should, as he and his wife Frances lived in Grandpont, and he died whilst on active service in France, probably as a prisoner of war.
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Image courtesy of Ron Williams's niece Jean Rivers. |
Lived at 23 Buckingham Street, Grandpont.
Flight Sergeant (pilot) in the 252 Squadron, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, service no. 1191975.
Commemorated on the Alamein Cremation Memorial, northern Egypt. |
Ron Williams was born and brought up in Grandpont, the youngest of six children. Members of his family occupied 23 Buckingham Street for almost the whole of the twentieth century. He won a place at Southfield School in East Oxford, and left there at sixteen to work as a clerk in the Shell Mex depot on Hollybush Row, near the railway station. Early in the war he joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve and trained to be a pilot. He was posted to Egypt; his plane failed to return to base one night and he and all its crew were presumed lost. His mother and siblings had to wait almost six months before his death was officially confirmed.
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Killed by enemy fire on 3 August 1944, aged 29, in Normandy, France.