Cyril George Clarke was the only son of Freeman and Mary Ann Clarke (nee Harris). He was born in Haddenham in 1889, where his father was a baker at “Clementine” in the High Street and he had two younger sisters. Educated at Lord Williams’s Grammar School in Thame, he went on to train as a […]
John Anthony Creemer Clarke was born in Amesbury, Wiltshire in early 1922. He was the son of John Creemer Clarke and Meta Lyons Clarke (nee Thompson). John senior was a crop reporter with the Ministry of Agriculture who by 1939 was living at 82 High Street, Thame, Oxfordshire. John joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer […]
Richard John Philip Hewetson, was the only son of the Reverend William and Susan Kathleen Hewetson (nee Burgess). He was born on 14th August 1893 in Aston Pinxton, Warwickshire, and moved to Thame in 1898 when his father was appointed vicar at St Mary’s church. They lived in the vicarage on the Long Crendon Road until 1905 when […]
Alfred Thomas Cross was born in Moreton in 1899, one of twelve children born to William and Adelaide Cross (nee Higgins), an agricultural worker. Alfred was called up for service in May 1917, and received basic training with one of the Young Soldiers battalions of the Devonshire Regiment. He was then sent to the front with the […]
Ralph Line (or Lines) was born in Hampstead, London on the 24th June 1887 to mother Ruth (nee House), and father Richard Line, a butcher. He was baptised in the parish church of Harmondsworth on the 7th August 1887, and was the eldest of seven children. Together with his then widowed mother and brothers, Ralph moved to Thame […]
Born in 1875, Harry Howland was the son of William (d. 1882) and Caroline (d. 1899) Howland, living in High Street, Thame. In 1901 Harry living in Edmonton, Middlesex, but by 1911 had moved to Haywards Heath, Sussex, where he was working as an attendant at the Public Lunatic Asylum. He married Emma Elizabeth Foreman […]
Frederick Neil was born in Shabbington, Oxfordshire on 13th February 1883, one of six children of Thomas and Ruth Neil. He married Hannah (Annie) Doran in Shabbington in 1910 and had two daughters, Rosina, who died shortly after birth, and Freda. Like his father, Frederick was a farm labourer. As a married man he did not enlist at […]
1498, Sergeant William Edward Roberts was serving in C (Henley) Squadron of the Queens Own Oxfordshire Hussars when he was killed, aged 30, on the 28th May 1915 near the Hooge, Ypres. According to letters from his colleagues and commanding officers he had been hit in the head from a sniper’s bullet, and died on […]
William Chowns was born on 24th January 1889 in Moreton, near Thame. The son of William Chowns and Emma (née Austin). He was the fourth child of a family of six boys and one girl. The family all emigrated to Canada between 1906 and 1911, except for Frank, the eldest, who married and stayed in […]
Stanley and his twin brother Vincent were born in 1906 in Oxford the youngest of seven sons and one daughter of James and Mary Jane Allen. In 1911 the family were living in St Clements Oxford and later moved to Headington. Stanley married Lilian F Simonson in Headington in 1930. He served as a Gunner […]