Joseph Edmund PIDDINGTON

Joseph Piddington's Commonwealth War Grave in Wolvercote Cemetery. Image courtesy of Hark Hathaway.

Joseph Piddington’s name does not appear on the Second World War memorial in St Matthew’s Church, but we feel that it should. He lived in Marlborough Road in Grandpont, and spent most of his adult life in the Army Reserves or the Territorial Army. He served with the British Expeditionary Force in both world wars. Although he died at home fifteen months after the end of the Second World War, the fact that he has a Commonwealth War Grave at Wolvercote Cemetery means that he was considered to be a casualty of the war.

Joseph Edmund Piddington was born on 17 May 1893 in St Thomas’s, Oxford, and baptised in the church there on 8 June. He was the first son of Thomas and Sarah Piddington. The family lived in North Court off Hollybush Row, one of the many crowded courtyards which characterised this part of the city. Joseph’s father Thomas was a labourer, originally from Cuddington in Buckinghamshire; his mother Sarah (née Field) was from St Thomas’s, the daughter of a tailor. The family suffered bouts of financial hardship, and in 1890 Thomas was claiming poor relief from the Oxford Board of Guardians (an early form of state benefit).

Thomas and Sarah’s second son Thomas Charles was born in September 1894, by which time they had moved to Peacock’s Yard, a narrow courtyard off St Thomas’s High Street lined with back-to-back houses. A third son, William, was born in the winter of 1896, but died almost immediately, before he could be baptised.

By 1900 the family had again fallen on hard times and Joseph (aged seven) was living temporarily in the workhouse on Cowley Road and being educated at the associated Poor Law School in Cowley. By 1901 however the Piddington family had moved to a slightly larger house in Bookbinders Yard off St Thomas’s High Street (though they were sharing it with another couple). The 1901 census recorded Joseph at home there with his parents (his father an agricultural labourer and his mother a charwoman), and his younger brother Thomas, aged six.

In November 1910, aged seventeen, Joseph joined the Army Reserve E (Special Reservists), a unit formed in 1907 to create a pool of trained men who could reinforce the regular army in the event of war. Joseph signed up for six years with the Ox & Bucks Light Infantry; his attestation papers record that he was a news vendor, and had a tattoo on his left forearm.

The 1911 census records Joseph as a 'soldier (Private)' at home at 6 Bookbinder’s Yard with his parents and younger brother Thomas, who (like Joseph) was a news vendor. By 1913 the family had moved to 4 Chaundy’s Yard off Paradise Street in St Ebbe's, and in the winter of that year Joseph married Lizzie Blagrove. Lizzie was the daughter of a coal heaver and a laundress; she had grown up in St Thomas's, partly at 3 Bookbinders Yard, three doors along from the Piddingtons. Lizzie moved in with Joseph at 4 Chaundy's Yard and their son Joseph Thomas was born there on 16 April 1914. The baby died twelve days later, after Joseph had taken him to bed and fallen asleep with him on his arm. The coroner's verdict was "suffocation due to being accidentally overlaid". Lizzie, Joseph's wife, died less than two weeks later; she was 21.

At the time of the deaths of his son and wife, Joseph was still serving with the Army Reserve whilst working as a news vendor. He was mobilised on 8 August 1914, shortly after the outbreak of the First World War. He was posted overseas as a Private with the 2nd Battalion of the Ox & Bucks Light Infantry, and spent some of the war in France and some of it back in Britain. (In 1915 he was in financial difficulties and claiming poor relief from the Oxford Board of Guardians.) In 1918 he became a Rifleman in the 33rd London Regiment (Reserve Battalion), and in early 1919 he was transferred to Class Z – meaning that he was released into civilian life but was obligated to return to service in the event of a national emergency. This obligation was abolished in March 1920, and Joseph was discharged from the army, having served for over eight years.

During the First World War Joseph's younger brother Thomas served as a Private in the Ox & Bucks Light Infantry. 

Two days before the end of the war, on 9 November 1918, Joseph married Caroline Hancock (known as Carrie) who was from Bicester, the daughter of a carpenter. She had been working as a live-in cook for the vicar of Hethe, near Bicester. Joseph’s mother Sarah died only a few months later, in March 1919, aged 46.

Joseph and Carrie moved to New Hinksey in south Oxford and their daughter Ruby was born on 18 April 1920. Joseph worked as a kitchen porter and re-joined the army reserves: in the 1921 census he was recorded as a Corporal in the 4th Battalion of the Ox & Bucks Defence Force, living with 170 other men at Vauxhall Camp, Didcot, whilst Carrie was at 1 Stewart Street, New Hinksey, with baby Ruby. Joseph’s widowed father Thomas was living alone at 94 Friars Street, St Ebbe’s, and had taken over the newspaper-vending business.

Joseph's brother Thomas junior, meanwhile, had gone to live in Jarrow on Tyneside, and had found employment at Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company. In 1920 he married Amy Willis who was from Fairford in Gloucestershire. They had three children, and later moved back to Gloucestershire, to Lechlade, where Thomas was employed as a storeman for the Air Ministry.

Joseph and Thomas’s father died in January 1927, aged 64. His death was recorded in the report of the Oxford Board of Guardians for that year, suggesting that he was receiving poor relief.

Joseph was discharged from the Army Reserves in 1926, but rejoined the Ox & Bucks (Territorial Army) in March 1931. His job at the time was as a tent repairer for the Royal Army Ordnance Corps (RAOC) at Didcot, and his army records describe him as being 5' 5¼" tall, weighing 9 stone, and having a sallow complexion, hazel eyes and dark brown hair. His religion was Church of England.

In around 1936 Joseph, Carrie and their daughter Ruby moved to 163 Marlborough Road, Grandpont. In June of that year Ruby (now sixteen) got a job as a telephonist with the General Post Office on St Aldates. The 1939 register, taken on 29 September, four weeks after the outbreak of the Second World War, recorded her and her mother Carrie living at 163 Marlborough Road, Carrie undertaking ‘unpaid domestic duties’. Joseph (aged 46) was absent, having been called up for war service on 2 September.

Joseph was assigned to the 4th Battalion of the Ox & Bucks Light Infantry as a Private, service number 5376175. In January 1940 he was posted to France with the British Expeditionary Force. He returned to England in April, prior to the withdrawal of British forces to Dunkirk, during which the 4th Battalion suffered severe losses. Back at home, Joseph was transferred to the 8th (Home Defence) Battalion of the Royal Berkshire Regiment (Princess Charlotte of Wales’s). The main role of this battalion was to defend vulnerable points in the South Midlands, and later across the whole of southern England. In September 1941 he was discharged from the army as medically unfit, having been suffering from chest pains, shortness of breath, high blood pressure and rheumatism. Since 1931 he had served for a total of 12 years and 175 days (wartime service counting as double). His records state that his military conduct had been 'good' and that he was a 'clean and sober soldier’. In December 1945 he was awarded an army pension of 15 shillings a week (about £30 in today's money) plus a 'Disablement Award'.

Joseph died at home at 163 Marlborough Road on 23 August 1946, fifteen months after the war in Europe ended. His wife Carrie was with him; the causes of death were myocardial (heart muscle) degeneration and pulmonary tuberculosis. He was 53. He was buried at Wolvercote Cemetery. His Commonwealth War Grave, erected in 1949, is inscribed with words from Laurence Binyon’s poem For the Fallen, “At the going down / Of the sun / And in the morning / We will remember”. He left an estate worth £321 8s 4d (about £12,000 in today's money).

Joseph’s daughter Ruby had married Henry Hoare in the winter of 1942. Henry, a metal inspector at the Cowley car works, had been born in London but seems to have been brought up by William and Elizabeth Beesley at 137 Marlborough Road in Oxford. (Henry’s father had himself been the adopted son of the Beesleys.) Ruby and Henry’s sons Geoffrey and Peter were born in 1944 and 1946.

Joseph’s only sibling Thomas continued to live in Lechlade in Gloucestershire, but died in the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford in September 1953, aged 59.

Joseph’s widow Carrie lived at 163 Marlborough Road until at least the late 1960s. She moved to Marston, and died in 1981 aged 90. She was buried alongside Joseph in Wolvercote Cemetery.

Research by Mark Pear, Liz Woolley and Mark Hathaway. 

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