Ronald Philip WILLIAMS

Image courtesy of Jean Rivers.

Ronald Philip Williams, known as Ron, was born on 16 September 1920 in Grandpont. He was the youngest child of Albert and Mabel (née White). Albert had been brought up in St Aldates (in Floyds Row and later Thames Street), the eighth of the twelve children of a plasterer. By the time of the 1901 census, when he was in his early twenties, he was working as an assistant in a men’s hosiery shop, and the family had moved to 8 Buckingham Street in Grandpont.

Mabel, Ron’s mother, was born and raised in Essex, the third of nine children. Her father was a gardener. By 1901 she had moved to Oxford and was working as a live-in parlourmaid at 3 Norham Gardens.

Albert and Mabel married in 1903 at St Aldates Church and set up home at 127 Marlborough Road, close to Albert’s parents in Grandpont. Their first child Hilda was born in 1904 but died only a month later. They were living at 70 Marlborough Road when their second child Mabel was baptised at St Aldates in 1906 and, by the baptism of their third child Evelyn in 1908, they were living at 31 Buckingham Street. Their fourth child Doris was born in 1910 but died in infancy. Around this time Albert’s parents were living at 23 Buckingham Street, and Albert and Mabel had moved into that house by 1913 when their fifth child Aubrey was born. The Williams family’s association with 23 Buckingham Street was to last for almost the whole of the twentieth century.

Albert and Mabel’s sixth child Freda was born in 1915, and their last child, Ronald Philip (Ron), in 1920 (by which time they were both in their forties). By 1921 Albert was working as a bedder (a bedmaker) at Corpus Christi College. Here is a photograph of a family picnic in the mid 1920s.

Albert was probably too old to serve in the First World War, but one of his brothers, George Williams, served in the Ox & Bucks Light Infantry and died of wounds in April 1918. He is commemorated on the memorial in the church of St John the Evangelist, New Hinksey.

Ron attended St Matthews Infants’ School from 1925 to 1927 before moving to South Oxford School from 1927 to 1932. He was a successful student and won a scholarship to Southfield School on Glanville Road in East Oxford via the annual schools’ examination. This was highly competitive; candidates had to earn high enough marks in the first round of exams to qualify to sit the scholarship exam itself.

Ron’s father Albert died in 1929, aged 50, when Ron was nine. His funeral service was conducted by the long-serving vicar of St Matthew’s Church, Revd DK Stather Hunt, and he was buried in Osney Cemetery. Ron’s eldest sister Mabel (who had taught at the Sunday School at St Matthew’s) had trained as a teacher in Salisbury and taught in Runcorn, but returned to Grandpont when her father died.

Ron was confirmed at St Matthew’s by Revd Stather-Hunt in April 1936, and in November that year, when he was sixteen, he left Southfield School to start work as a clerk for Shell Mex on Hollybush Row. This was the fuel depot associated with the Great Western Railway, whose sidings extended from the main line as far south as Hollybush Row.

The 1939 register, taken on 29 September, four weeks after the outbreak of the Second World War, recorded the Williams family at 23 Buckingham Street: Ron’s mother Mabel, a widow aged 60; his oldest sister Mabel, aged 33, working as a school teacher; Freda, aged 23, a coal office clerk; and Ron, aged nineteen, a ‘Junior Clerk, Petrol Office’. Evelyn had married a coach painter, William Orton, in 1938, and gone to live in North Hinksey Lane. Aubrey was living in Botley with his wife Ellen and working as a carpenter joiner.

In late 1939 or 1940 Ron joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve. He became a Flight Sergeant, service no. 1191975. In 1941 Southfield School’s old boys’ magazine The Recorder reported that Ron “has been for some time under training as a Pilot in the Coastal Command of the RAF. His long training has recently included a course on Navigation during which he was flying Blackburn Bothas. He expects soon to be on operations.” (The RAF had been organised into Fighter, Bomber and Coastal Commands in 1936; Coastal Command’s remit was the defence of Allied convoys and shipping.)

Ron was assigned to 252 Squadron which by January 1942 was deployed at Idku, Egypt. Its task was to disrupt shipping routes from Italy which were supplying German forces based in North Africa. Coastal Command’s role had changed from being largely defensive, and many missions were now offensive. By this time 252 Squadron had been issued with Beaufighter planes, seen as an improvement on the Blackburn Bothas, which were known to have stability issues and to be underpowered.

On 19 August 1942 Ron was piloting a plane which left the base at Idku on a mission along the North African coast, but did not return. Four days later Ron’s Squadron Leader wrote to Ron’s mother Mabel at 23 Buckingham Street, Oxford: “As officer commanding this Squadron I extend to you my deepest sympathy in the sad news that your son, Sgt R.P. Williams is missing. He proceeded from Base for operations on 19th August, 1942, from which he failed to return. There is absolutely no indication as to the fate of your son who was extremely popular with all ranks, and the whole Squadron joins me in expressing my sympathy to you.”

Five months later, in January 1943, Mabel received a letter from the Air Officer in charge of records at RAF Gloucester, regretting that all efforts to trace Ron had been unsuccessful. She also received the standard message of sympathy from Buckingham Palace.

Ron was 21 when he died, though the Commonwealth War Graves Commission recorded him as being 22, presumably because his death was not verified until six months after he went missing.

Ron is commemorated on the Alamein Cremation Memorial in northern Egypt. His name is also on the Oxford City Second World War Roll of Honour, which is in the church of St Michael at the Northgate on Cornmarket, and on the war memorial of Southfield School (now Oxford Spires Academy) on Glanville Road in East Oxford. The memorial panels to former pupils who died in the war were unveiled on 24 June 1946, and a commemoration service was held at the church of St Martin & All Saints (now the library of Lincoln College) the following Sunday. Another of our 24 Men of Grandpont and Cold Harbour, Maurice Goddard, attended Southfield School (though he was ten years older than Ron) and so is also named on the school's memorial.

Ron’s mother Mabel and eldest sister Mabel lived at 23 Buckingham Street for the rest of their lives. Mabel junior taught at South Oxford School until the late 1960s and was an active figure in the Boys’ Brigade, which was a big part of many children's lives in South Oxford. Ron’s family continued to remember him and talk fondly of him to subsequent generations. Mabel senior died in 1965, aged 86, and Mabel junior in 1993, aged 87.

Research by Siobhan Lancaster; with thanks to Ron’s niece Jean Rivers for photographs, letters and the memories of members of the Williams family.

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