Charles Henry BOWLEY
Image courtesy of Don Wildman.
Charles Henry Bowley, known as Charlie, was born on 9 April 1912, the oldest son of John Bowley and his wife Gertrude (née Martin), who were cousins. John and Gertrude both lived in New Hinksey and were married at the church of St John the Evangelist on 2 April 1911. John was originally from Gloucestershire and worked as a carpenter and joiner. Gertrude came originally from London and before her marriage was a draper’s clerk. The couple lived initially in Wolvercote, and they had four sons: Charles, born 1912; John, 1914; Arthur, 1918; and Norman, 1919. John died in 1918, aged four.
By 1921 the family had moved back to New Hinksey, to 35 Sunningwell Road, and John was working as a motor body maker for Morris Motors in Cowley. The surviving three boys probably attended New Hinksey School, and Charlie was a member of the 14th Oxford, New Hinksey Scout Group.
After school, Charlie worked as a carpenter and joiner, as his father and paternal grandfather had done before him. On 31 July 1937 he married Cynthia May Harriett Floyd. She was the daughter of Frederick and Laura Floyd; Frederick worked with the heavy horses used for ploughing and harvesting at Manor Farm, Ferry Hinksey, in west Oxford. Charlie and Cynthia had a daughter, Yvonne, in 1938.
The 1939 register, taken four weeks after the outbreak of the Second World War in September, shows Charlie, Cynthia and Yvonne living at Elmscroft, 9 The Avenue, Kennington, a village just south of Oxford (in Berkshire at the time). They may have had two evacuee children living with them, as there are two redacted lines on the register, and Cynthia’s son Don Wildman remembers her talking about a Dutch refugee who stayed with them during the war, and with whom Cynthia kept in touch for some years afterwards.
Charlie joined the Army Catering Corps and served as a Private, service no. 2372823. This family photograph shows him serving in the Middle East in 1942. At the time of his death in September 1944 he was attached to the Royal Corps of Signals. Cynthia’s son Don Wildman recalls that “The story my mother told about his death is that he became seriously ill serving overseas and required full hospital treatment in the UK. Apparently, the troopship repatriating him had to route far to the north because of U-boat activity, eventually sailing into Liverpool. Sadly, that delay led to his death.”
It’s not clear whether Charlie was treated in hospital in Oxford, but he was buried in St Laurence’s churchyard, in the village of South Hinksey (just to the south-west of the city). His gravestone bears the inscription 'Goodnight, Darling / God Bless'. He is also commemorated in the Oxford City Second World War Roll of Honour which is in the church of St Michael at the Northgate on Cornmarket.
Charlie’s parents were still living at 35 Sunningwell Road in New Hinksey in 1939; John died in 1951 and Gertrude died in 1961, having last lived at Horspath.
Charlie’s widow Cynthia continued living in Kennington until she married Maurice Wildman in 1947. She died in 1987 in Shropshire. Charles and Cynthia’s daughter Yvonne married Terence White in Bedford in 1958; she died in September 2025.
Research by Siobhan Lancaster, with thanks to Don Wildman, son of Charlie's widow Cynthia, for sharing information, family memories, and the photograph of Charlie.
Charlie Bowley in the Middle East, November 1942. Image courtesy of Don Wildman. (Click image to close)
Charlie Bowley with the 14th Oxford, New Hinksey Scout Group at Greenings Farm, near Chilswell Hills, 1925-6. Image from The Changing Faces of South Oxford and South Hinksey, Book 2, by Carole Newbigging. (Click image to close)
