The men below are listed on the Second World War memorial in St John the Evangelist church, and this is what we've found out about them so far. We have also included four other men – Arthur Jefferies, Thomas Jones, Frederick Turner and James Ward – who aren't on the memorial, but who we think should be. If you know more about any of them, please
Back to the 18 Men of New Hinksey main page.
Image courtesy of John Moles, from the Battle of Britain Memorial website. |
Grew up at 62 Church Street (now Vicarage Road), New Hinksey.
Sergeant (Air Gunner) with 141 Squadron, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, service no. 903401.
Buried at Boulogne Eastern Cemetery, northern France. |
Peter Atkins grew up at the bakery and grocery shop in New Hinksey run by his parents. He married Joyce Brinkhurst in 1936, and went to live in East Oxford with her and her family. He worked as a storekeeper at Morris Motors in Cowley, and joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve in July 1939, two months before the outbreak of war. He was called up in early July 1940 and killed only two weeks later in the Battle of Britain.
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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 courtesy of Don Wildman. |
Grew up at 35 Sunningwell Road, New Hinksey.
Private with the Army Catering Corps, attached to the Royal Corps of Signals, service no. 2372823.
Buried at St Laurence's Church, South Hinksey, Oxford. |
Charlie Bowley was a carpenter and joiner, like his father and grandfather before him. He and his wife Cynthia had a daughter, Yvonne, who was only six when Charlie died. He had been serving in the Middle East, became seriously ill, and had to be repatriated to Britain for hospital treatment, but did not survive.
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George VI Military Police cap badge (worn between 1936 and 1946); image courtesy of the Royal Military Police Association. |
His brother Stanley lodged at 66 Norreys Avenue, New Hinksey.
Private with the Corps of Military Police, service no. 13077046.
Buried at St Laurence's Church, South Hinksey, Oxford. |
John Boyle worked as a head gardener in Brackley, on the Northamptonshire/Oxfordshire border. He does not seem to have lived in south Oxford himself, though his family had connections with the area. However, he died here, with his brother living nearby.
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Image from the Oxford Mail, 16 July 1943. |
Lived at 73 Sunningwell Road, New Hinksey.
Gunner with the 85th Anti-Tank Regiment, Royal Artillery, service no. 1442231.
Buried at Kanchanaburi War Cemetery, western Thailand. |
Harold Brown was born in St Clement's, where his parents were landlords of the Star of India pub. His father died when Harold was less than a year old. After leaving school Harold worked for a cabinet-makers in East Oxford; he joined the army at the beginning of the war, when he was 18. With thousands of other Allied troops he was captured by the Japanese after the fall of Singapore in February 1942, and forced to work on the construction of the Burma-Siam railway.
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Image courtesy of Rhona Allen. |
Lived at 104 Wytham Street, New Hinksey.
Sapper with the 284th Armoured Assault Squadron, Royal Engineers, service no. 14342220.
Commemorated on the Groesbeek Memorial in Groesbeek Canadian War Cemetery, Nijmegen, Netherlands. |
Albert Carr grew up in Lake Street, but he moved to Wytham Street following his marriage to Olive Brown in July 1938. During the war he served with a specialist unit tasked with clearing mines and, together with dozens of other Allied soldiers, he was killed in a devastating explosion.
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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 St Matthew’s Church in Grandpont.
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Albert Harris aged about thirteen. Image from Carole Newbigging, The Changing Faces of New Hinksey and South Hinksey, Book 1. |
His family lived at 70 Sunningwell Road, and his wife and her family lived at 8 Monmouth Road, New Hinksey.
Sergeant (Pilot) with 41 Squadron of the Royal Air Force, service no. 563150.
Buried at St Laurence's Church, South Hinksey, Oxford. |
Albert Harris was the first of our New Hinksey men to die in the war, only six weeks after it started. He had already been an RAF pilot for at least two years, based at RAF Catterick in Yorkshire. His only child Eleanor was born shortly after he died.
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 Image from the Haynes Family Tree on www.ancestry.co.uk. |
His wife and her family lived at 5 Norreys Avenue, New Hinksey.
Warrant Officer Class II with 253 Forward (or Tank) Delivery Squadron of the Royal Armoured Corps.
Buried in the Medjez-El-Bab War Cemetery, Tunisia. |
Harold Haynes was a Post Office engineer in civilian life. He grew up in East Oxford but his wife Violet and her family lived in New Hinksey. Harold and Violet's three children were all under the age of six when their father was killed whilst serving in North Africa.
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 Image from the Oxford Mail, . |
Lived at 30 Monmouth Road, New Hinksey.
Trooper with the Royal Armoured Corps, service no. 406369.
Commemorated on the Alamein Memorial, El Alamein, northern Egypt. |
Arthur Jefferies is not named on the New Hinksey memorial, but we feel that he should be.
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Image from the Oxford Mail, . |
Lived at 10 Bertie Place, Cold Harbour.
XX with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, service no. 1530699.
Buried at St Andrew's Church, North Weald Bassett, Essex. |
Thomas Jones is not named on the New Hinksey memorial, but we feel that he should be.
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Image from the Oxford Mail, 10 October 1940. |
His family lived at 54 Sunningwell Road, New Hinksey.
First Class Stoker on submarine HMS Narwhal, Royal Navy, service no. C/KX 81233.
Commemorated on the Chatham Naval Memorial, Kent. |
Henry Kitching grew up in New Hinksey and was the oldest of eight siblings. He joined the Royal Navy in 1930, when he was eighteen, and in 1936 he married Stella Rizzo in the Maltese port town of Paola, near Valletta. Stella came to live in England, and the couple were lodging in Portsmouth when war broke out. Henry's vessel, the submarine HMS Narwhal, was deployed to Northumberland, and was sunk whilst on a mission to lay mines in the North Sea. There were no survivors, but it took three months for his death to be confirmed.
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Image from the Oxford Mail, 31 December 1942. |
Lived at 11 Sunningwell Road and later 11 Oswestry Road, New Hinksey.
Flying Officer (Navigator) with 9 (Bomber) Squadron of the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, service no. 118825.
Buried at Oosterhout Protestant Cemetery, southern Netherlands. |
In civilian life James Lynes worked as a clerk for Oxford City Corporation at the Town Hall, and from 1935 he was a volunteer in the Observer Corps, trained to recognise and monitor aircraft. During the war he served as a Navigator in Arvo Lancaster bombers, based in Suffolk and later Lincolnshire. He and all his crewmates were killed when their plane crashed having come under enemy fire over the Netherlands. James's wife Margaret gave birth to their only child five weeks later.
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Image from the Oxford Mail, 25 January 1945. |
Lived at 4 School Place, New Hinksey.
Private with the 1st Battalion of the Ox & Bucks Light Infantry, service no. 14720969.
Buried at the Reichswald Forest War Cemetery, western Germany. |
Don Mackenzie grew up in Church Street (now Vicarage Road) in New Hinksey, and although he and his family moved to East Oxford when he was in his teens, Don moved back to the area with his wife Freda during the war. Their son Paul was born in the summer of 1944, six months before Don died.
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Image from the Oxford Mail, 29 April 1942. |
Lived at 100 Wytham Street, New Hinksey.
Able Seaman with the Royal Navy / Royal Fleet Reserve, HMS Hermes, service no. D/J 106261.
Buried at Columbo (Kanatte) General Cemetery, Sri Lanka. |
William Marriot joined the Royal Naval Reserve when he was fifteen, and served in the Royal Navy full time from the age of eighteen. On completing his twelve years of service, he returned to Oxford and worked for the Post Office. However, war broke out less than two years later, and William was recalled as a member of the Royal Fleet Reserve.
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Image from the Oxford Mail, . |
Lived at 272 Abingdon Road, Cold Harbour.
Ordinary Seaman on HMS Durban, Royal Navy, service no. P/JX 274740.
Buried at Durban (Stellawood) Cemetery, Kwazulu Natal, South Africa. |
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Image from the Oxford Mail, . |
Lived at 208 Abingdon Road, New Hinksey.
Flight Sergeant (Observer) with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, service no. 1188032.
Commemorated on the Alamein Memorial, Egypt. |
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Image from the Oxford Mail, . |
Lived at 258 Abingdon Road, New Hinksey.
Sergeant (Pilot) with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, service no. 920733.
Commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial, Englefield Green, near Windsor. |
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Image from the Oxford Mail, . |
Lived at 26 Gordon Street, New Hinksey.
Private with the Second Battalion of the Lincolnshire Regiment, service no. 5506240.
Buried at Becklingen War Cemetery, northern Germany. |
Frederick Turner is not named on the New Hinksey memorial, but we feel that he should be.
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Image from the Oxford Mail, . |
Lived at 30 Norreys Avenue, New Hinksey.
Pilot Officer with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, service no. 126692.
Buried at Rheinberg War Cemetery, western Germany. |
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Image from the Oxford Mail, . |
Lived at 23 Wytham Street, New Hinksey.
XX on battleship HMS Valient, Royal Navy, service no. P/KX 137690.
Buried at St Laurence's Church, South Hinksey, Oxford. |
James Ward is not named on the memorial in St John the Evangelist, but we feel that he should be.
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Image from the Oxford Mail, . |
Lived at 23 Lincoln Road, New Hinksey.
Flight Sergeant (Engineer) with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, service no. 1609929.
Buried at Choloy War Cemetery, north-eastern France. |
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Killed on 19 July 1940, aged 26, when his plane was shot down over the sea near northern France.