Edward George BOSWELL

Image from the Oxford Mail, 28 April 1943.

Edward Boswell was born on 4 March 1914 in St Aldates in Oxford. His father Ernest was born in Garsington, five miles south-east of Oxford, but brought up in St Ebbe’s. He worked as a carter for the City Corporation. Edward’s mother Harriet (née Butler) was brought up in Sheppard’s Row off St Aldates, the daughter of a brewer’s carter. As a young woman she worked as a domestic servant. She and Ernest married in 1912 and Edward was the second of their seven children. Ernest served with the Machine Gun Corps during the First World War.

In 1921 Edward (aged seven) was living in Burrows Yard – one of the many narrow courtyards off St Aldates – with his parents and four brothers: Ernest (aged eight); William (three); Reginald (one); and Vincent (six months). A fifth brother, Dennis, was born in 1922, followed by Frederick in 1924 and a sister, Joan, in May 1927. By this time the family had moved to Weirs Lane in Cold Harbour, at the far southern end of the Abingdon Road, part of a new council estate built to rehouse families displaced by clearances in St Aldates.

Edward’s younger brother Dennis died at the age of five in August 1927, followed only a few months later by their father Ernest, who was 44. Reginald died the following year, aged eight. Edward’s mother Harriet had another child, Margaret, in 1931, though it’s not clear who the father was; she was given the surname Boswell.

In the early summer of 1935, when he was 21, Edward married Dorothy Chandler, who was 22. She grew up in New Hinksey in south Oxford, the youngest of ten children. Dorothy’s father William was a plumber and painter; he and three of Dorothy's brothers served in the First World War. Two of them – William and George – were killed and are commemorated on the war memorial in the church of St John the Evangelist in New Hinksey. Dorothy’s mother Alice died in 1923, when Dorothy was ten.

Following their marriage, Edward moved in to Dorothy’s family home at 28 Gordon Street in New Hinksey with her widowed father William. Edward and Dorothy’s first child Sheila was born in November 1935.

Edward’s older brother Ernest died in the summer of 1937, aged 24. His mother Harriet remarried that autumn, to a former seaman called Albert Savins. Another of Edward’s brothers, Vincent, died in 1938 at the age of seventeen, meaning that four of his seven siblings had died young.

Edward and Dorothy’s second child Janet was born in March 1938. The 1939 register, taken on 29 September, four weeks after the outbreak of war, recorded Edward and Dorothy living at 28 Gordon Street, New Hinksey, with their daughters Sheila and Janet, and Dorothy’s father William. Edward was working as a motor driver, test-driving newly-built cars at Morris Motors in Cowley.

Edward and Dorothy’s third child William (known as Bill) was born in 1940. It’s likely that Edward joined the 144th Battery of the 35th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery (a Territorial unit formed at Oxford specifically for the defence of RAF airfields) around this time. He was a Gunner, service number 1523727. The initial work of the regiment was to defend Oxfordshire, and later other southern counties, against air attack. In November 1941 however, the regiment set sail from Greenock in Scotland. When Edward left the country, Dorothy was pregnant with their fourth child.

The intended destination of Edward’s regiment was the Middle East, but they were diverted to Singapore, reaching there in January 1942. Between 8 and 15 February there was intense fighting between British and Japanese forces, resulting in Japan capturing Singapore (said to have been the largest British surrender in history). About 80,000 British, Indian, Australian and local troops became prisoners of war, including Edward Boswell. He was reported missing soon afterwards.

Back at home in Oxford, Dorothy gave birth to a son, Roy, in May 1942, but the baby died when he was only a week old. By now the family had moved to Radcliffe Road off the Iffley Road in East Oxford, and Roy was buried in nearby Rose Hill Cemetery.

On 18 October, Edward was among the 600 men of the Royal Artillery who were transported by the Japanese from Singapore to Rabaul in Papua New Guinea. At the end of November, 517 of those men (including Edward) sailed from Rabaul to Ballalae, one of the Solomon Islands, leaving behind 82 of their colleagues, most of whom were considered too sick to make the journey. Only 18 of those 82 survived to the end of the war. Those taken to Ballalae were forced to construct an airstrip for the Japanese that is still in use today. None of these 517 men survived. Approximately 100 died from overwork, exhaustion and tropical diseases, and about 300 were killed by an allied air raid on the island. After completing the runway, the remaining prisoners – including Edward Boswell – were executed and their bodies thrown into mass graves. Another of our 24 Men of Grandpont and Cold Harbour, Ernest Finch, was also one of the victims. The official date given for what became known as the Ballalae Massacre is 5 March 1943, but it is generally accepted that it probably occurred in late June. On 28 April the Oxford Mail reported that Edward was a prisoner of the Japanese.

Edward was 29 when he died. He, Ernest Finch, and the other victims of the massacre are commemorated on the Singapore Memorial in the Kranji War Cemetery, which bears the names of over 24,000 casualties of the Commonwealth land, sea and air forces who have no known grave. Edward's name is inscribed on Column 13. Another of our 24 Men of Grandpont and Cold Harbour, Alan Martin, is also listed on the memorial.

Edward’s widow Dorothy married Stanley Ledwell in the autumn of 1946. Stanley had been brought up in St Ebbe’s, where his father was employed at the gas works; as a young man he had lived in Canada. He died in 1960 at the age of 54. Dorothy died in 1995, aged 72.

Edward and Dorothy’s oldest child Sheila married Gordon Mazey in 1955; her younger sister Janet married Ivor Foley in 1957. At the time of writing (2025) their younger brother Bill is still alive and living in Oxford.

In 2003, Bill and his nephew Chris Foley (son of Janet and Ivor) joined other members of the charity COFEPOW (Children of Far East Prisoners of War) in a pilgrimage to Ballalae in the Solomon Islands. There they laid a plaque to commemorate their relatives, the prisoners of war who had died on the island 60 years before.

Research by Mark Hathaway and Brenda Stones; with thanks to Andrew and Brenda Wee for the photograph of Edward's name on the Singapore Memorial.

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