John Charles ENGLISH
Image from the Oxford Mail, 8 September 1943.
John English was born at 228 Marlborough Road, Grandpont, on 7 February 1916. He was the son of John and Florence English. John senior had been born and brought up in the Friars area of St Ebbe’s, one of the three children of a single woman, Mary Ann English. As a young man John worked as a packer in a printing works, and later as a warehouseman. Florence (née Jaycock) had been born in St Clements but grew up in the Friars, one of the nine children of William Jaycock, a City Corporation labourer, and his wife Jane, a sewing machinist. In her early twenties Florence also worked as a machinist at a clothing factory, probably at Lucas’s on George Street or Hyde’s on Shoe Lane. She and John English married at Holy Trinity Church in St Ebbe’s on new year’s day 1913. They settled in Grandpont, at 228 Marlborough Road, and their first child Winifred was born in September that year. Their second, John junior, was born in February 1916.
John senior joined the Royal Army Medical Corps in August 1915, and served at the 3rd Southern General, the large military hospital which occupied several buildings in Oxford during the First World War. However, he was discharged as ‘no longer physically fit for further war service’ a year later. He returned home to 228 Marlborough Road and thereafter was employed by AR Mowbray & Co, New Inn Yard, St Aldates, as a printer and warehouseman. He and Florence’s third child Norman was born in 1919, followed by Sybil in 1923.
On leaving school at the age of fourteen John junior followed his father into the printing industry and got a job at Oxford University Press in Jericho. He was a keen footballer, and played for the Press and also for the Cold Harbour team in South Oxford. In 1938 he scored no fewer than 36 goals for the Press.
In the 1939 register, taken on 29 September, four weeks after the outbreak of the Second World War, John junior was living at home at 228 Marlborough Road with his parents and siblings Norman and Sybil (Winifred was already married and had left home). All three men in the household were working in the printing industry: John senior as a printer’s rotaryman’s assistant; John junior (now aged 23) as a printer’s machine feeder (at Oxford University Press); and Norman (aged 20) as a printer’s warehouseman and cutter.
John junior joined the 1st Battalion of the Hampshire Regiment (an infantry unit of the regular army, known as the Tigers) as a Private, service number 5506871, probably in late 1942 or early 1943. (His employer, Oxford University Press, was engaged in vital war work and it's likely that earlier in the war John's job had been classed as a reserved occupation).
John was with the 1st Battalion of the Hampshire Regiment when it landed at Alexandria, Egypt, on 3 April 1943. The men underwent training near Cairo and then at Kabrit on the Suez Canal. Although few knew it, their objective was the invasion of the Italian island of Sicily ("the soft underbelly of Europe" as Churchill described it). The 231st Brigade, of which the 1st Hampshire was part, landed on Sicily on 9 July. For the first two days the Brigade’s advance was surprisingly easy, and they were greeted warmly by the local inhabitants whilst Italian soldiers surrendered in increasing numbers. On the afternoon of 13 July however, resistance stiffened near the town of Vizzini, where steady and accurate artillery fire from the hills ahead brought the advance to a halt. It soon became apparent that the attackers were a German unit of the Hermann Goering Armoured Division. In the ensuing fighting, many men of the 231st Brigade were lost, including John English. He was killed on 14 July 1943 at the age of 27. The circumstances of his death, and the ultimate success of the campaign, are described in more detail here.
John was buried at Syracuse War Cemetery on Sicily. The inscription on his gravestone reads 'A beautiful memory / left behind / His duty bravely / and boldly done'. He is also commemorated on the Oxford City Second World War Roll of Honour, which is in the church of St Michael at the Northgate on Cornmarket, and (together with 23 colleagues) on the war memorial at Oxford University Press. His death was reported in the Oxford Mail on 8 September 1943.
In his will John left £126 12s (about £5,500 in today's money) to his mother Florence.
Research by Emma Hill.
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