Leslie Alfred REVELL

Image from Carole Newbigging, The Changing Faces of South Oxford and South Hinksey, Book 1 (Robert Boyd Publications, 1998).

Leslie Revell, known as Les, was born on 9 June 1923, the son of John Revell and his wife Stella (née Day). John’s family were butchers, who also ran the Farriers Arms pub at the far end of the Abingdon Road in Cold Harbour. John's brother Frederick Revell died at the Somme in the First World War.

Stella was originally from Somerset, one of the ten children of a labourer. As a young woman she worked in domestic service, first in Bristol and then in North Oxford, at 4 Norham Gardens. She and John married at St John the Evangelist Church in New Hinksey on Christmas Day 1913. In the marriage register Stella's address was given as the Farriers Arms, but John was living in Camberwell, London, and working as a butcher.

The couple lived in London for some years, and when their first child Vera was born in August 1915 they were resident in Herne Hill. By the time of the 1921 census, however, they had moved back to Oxford and were living at 42 Norreys Avenue in New Hinksey. Their sons Stanley and Leslie were born in 1922 and 1923. The family later moved to 272 Abingdon Road (near the corner with Lincoln Road). Two of Stella’s sisters were living nearby.

Vera, Stan and Les attended New Hinksey School. Les and his friends Colin Collins, Ralph Smith (of 7 Lincoln Road) and Alan Lynn (of 278 Abingdon Road) were known as the Lincoln Road Gang; all four later joined the Navy. Les, Colin and Ralph played football in the New Hinksey School senior team and Les and and his brother Stan were members of the Sea Scouts.

During the Second World War Les joined the Royal Navy and served as an Ordinary Seaman on various ships, including HMS Durban, a light cruiser deployed on convoy and trade defence, surveillance and patrol duties. By August 1942 that ship had returned to the UK for a refit, but Les must have remained in South Africa because he died at Addington Hospital, Durban, of multiple injuries sustained in a road accident, on 29 August 1942. He was nineteen (making him the youngest of our 18 Men of New Hinksey to die).

(There is some contradiction in his records: the British Army and Navy death records give his ship or unit as HMS Afrikander (an on-shore Naval base just outside Cape Town, South Africa);  the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and his gravestone record him as serving on HMS Durban (see above); and the memorial in St John the Evangelist, New Hinksey, and the City of Oxford Second World War Roll of Honour (see below) record him as serving on HMS Lanka (an on-shore Naval base at Colombo, Sri Lanka).

Les was buried at at Durban (Stellawood) Cemetery. His gravestone bears the inscription ‘To a happy life / Came a sudden end / He lived, as he died, / Everyone’s friend.’ 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.

Les was the cousin of Ken Ayres, who also died in the war and is commemorated on the memorials of all three churches in South Oxford. Ken’s mother Elsie and Les’s father John were sister and brother. Elsie and her husband Frank Ayres ran the Farriers Arms from the 1930s.

Les Revell’s father John, mother Stella and brother Stan continued living at 272 Abingdon Road until their deaths in 1955, 1980, and 1988 respectively.

Vera, Les’s sister, married William Drake in November 1939, two months after the outbreak of the Second World War. She lived to be 106, dying in 2022, 80 years after the death of her younger brother.

Research by Siobhan Lancaster, with thanks to Lesley Dewhurst.

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