South Leigh
First World War
July 1914 - November 1918
First World War ~ July 1914 - November 1918
1911 Census
- Church, C.W.
- Claridge, H.C.
On 31st May 1916, the 2nd BCS consisted of New Zealand (flagship of Rear-Admiral William Pakenham) and Indefatigable. The squadron was assigned to Admiral Beatty's Battlecruiser Fleet which had put to sea to intercept a sortie by the High Seas Fleet into the North Sea. The British were able to decode the German radio messages and left their bases before the Germans put to sea. Admiral Franz von Hipper's battlecruisers spotted the Battlecruiser Fleet to their west at 3:20 p.m., but Beatty's ships did not spot the Germans to their east until 3:30. Two minutes later, he ordered a course change to east south-east to position himself astride the German's line of retreat and called his ships' crews to action stations. He also ordered the 2nd BCS, which had been leading, to fall in astern of the 1st BCS. Hipper ordered his ships to turn to starboard, away from the British, to assume a south-easterly course, and to reduce speed to 18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph) to allow three light cruisers of the 2nd Scouting Group to catch up. With this turn Hipper was falling back on the High Seas Fleet, then about 60 miles (97 km) behind him. Around this time Beatty altered course to the east as it was quickly apparent that he was still too far north to cut off Hipper.
This began what was to be called the "Run to the South" as Beatty changed course to steer east south-east at 03:45, paralleling Hipper's course, now that the range closed to under 18,000 yards (16,000 m). The Germans opened fire first at 3:48, followed by the British. The British ships were still in the process of making their turn as only the two leading ships, Lion and Princess Royal, had steadied on their course when the Germans opened fire. The British formation was echeloned to the right with Indefatigable in the rear and furthest to the west, and New Zealand ahead of her and slightly further east. The German fire was accurate from the beginning, but the British overestimated the range as the German ships blended into the haze. Indefatigable aimed at Von der Tann and New Zealand targeted Moltke while remaining unengaged herself. By 03:54, the range was down to 12,900 yards (11,800 m) and Beatty ordered a course change two points to starboard to open up the range at 03:57.
Around 4:00, Indefatigable was hit around the rear turret by two or three shells from Von der Tann. She fell out of formation to starboard and started sinking towards the stern and listing to port. Her magazines exploded at 4:03 after more hits, one on the forecastle and another on the forward turret. Smoke and flames gushed from the forward part of the ship and large pieces were thrown 200 feet (61.0 m) into the air. The most likely cause of her loss was a deflagration or low-order explosion in 'X' magazine that blew out her bottom and severed the steering control shafts, followed by the explosion of her forward magazines from the second volley. Von der Tann fired only fifty-two 28 cm (11 in) shells at Indefatigable before she exploded. Of her crew of 1,019, only two survived. While still in the water, two survivors found Indefatigable's captain, C. F. Sowerby, who was badly wounded and died before they could be rescued. The two survivors, Able Seaman Elliott and Leading Signalman Falmer, were rescued by the German torpedo boat S16. A third survivor, Signalman John Bowyer, is suspected to have been rescued by the Germans, but the ship that picked him out of the water is unknown. There is little additional evidence that there was a third survivor.
Source: Wikipedia | Image: Indefatigable blowing up.
- Claridge, G.W.
- Cox, W.A.
- Green, H.
- Hoare, A.R.
- Orpwood, F.
- Penson family
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The Penson family had their roots in Idbury. Robert Penson married Esther Annie Cox in 1884 and they had five children:-- Lionel Robert - 1885 – 1917
- Victor Hubert - 1887 - 1974
- Mabel Nancy (Nan) - 1889 - 1974
- Harold Guy (Jack) - 1891 - 1918
- Claude - 1893 - 1960
In 1891 Robert was recorded as an employer, a farmer, at Idbury. By 1901 Robert had died and the family were living at Mount Pleasant, Stow-on-the-Wold. Robert’s wife Esther was recorded as “living on own means”. Also with the family was Alice Mary Cox, Esther’s single sister.
In 1911 Harold and his younger brother Claude were recorded at The Albuhera Barracks, Stanhope Lines, Aldershot, with The Royal Army Medical Corps.
Lionel was recorded as a Bank Clerk, lodging in Theale, Reading.
Their mother Esther was recorded as a "Housekeeper at Station Farm, South Leigh". On her retirement she was given the tenancy of Stow Cottage and lived there until her death in 1945.
Victor emigrated to Canada in 1906, married Florence I. Craig in 1912 and died in New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada in 1974.
Mabel Nancy (Nan) never married and died in South Leigh in 1974.
Claude Penson survived the war, married Elsie Weller in London in 1924 and had two daughters, Joan in 1924 and Moreen in 1928. He died in 1960 in Portslade by Sea, Sussex.
Recollections by Karen Freimanis (née Forster), grand-daughter of Claude Penson.
When Harold and Lionel were killed in WW1, their mother was asked if she wanted the wooden crosses which had marked their graves, before proper headstones were erected by the War Graves Commission. She placed the wooden crosses in the porch of the South Leigh church, where my mother remembered seeing them for many years. I doubt if they are still there, and have no idea what happened to them. I wonder if anyone in the village has any information about the wooden crosses?
There are no memorials in the churchyard for Harold or Lionel, and no headstones for Esther or Nancy (although both were buried there) as the family did not believe in headstones (or perhaps could not afford them).
The daughter of Mr. Gunn, the Station Master, was a close friend of my aunt Nancy. Miss Gunn slept at my aunt's house every night for years until my aunt died, because both were spinsters and frightened to be alone at night. Miss Gunn lived at Gunn Cottage. I called at the cottage this summer, and met the present owner who had an old photo showing the cottage as it was in 1970 as I remembered it (old, damp, in the middle of a field with no driveway, and with no proper bathroom).
My mother, Moreen, is Claude's daughter. She used to spend her school holidays in South Leigh, arriving by train, and has very happy memories of South Leigh.
Grandfather Claude Penson is the youngest child and he survived the war. He was at Passchendaele, but never talked about the war to his family. He was wounded in the leg (a shell casing recoiled into his knee towards the end of the war), and he spent 18 months in hospital. After the war he moved to London, married and had two daughters, working as a civil servant until his retirement. He then moved to Worthing and died in 1960.
Great Aunt Nan (Mabel Nancy) lived in South Leigh (Station Farm and then Stow Cottage) for nearly all her life. She worked in London as a dance teacher at the studio of a cousin Kitty (Kathleen), who had married Jack Oliveri who was a band leader and club owner. My aunt had her 21st birthday party in his club in London in 1945.
Jack Penson married a French girl, Andrea Jeanne, during WW1. She moved to Oxford and remained there after Jack's death. She remarried Christopher Carter but always stayed in contact with our family, and she gave me some of these photos. She died in Bournemouth in 1996 at the age of 100. The photo of Jack and his colleagues at Christmas 1914 has the words, 'Ma chère Andrea, with love, Jack' on the reverse.
Karen Freimanis, December 2013. karenfreimanis@btinternet.com
Click on a thumbnail below to reveal the full-size image.
Lionel Robert Penson
Lionel Robert Penson's headstone
Esther Penson, née Cox. His mother at Lionel Robert Penson's grave in 1925.
Harold Guy Penson, known as 'Jack'.
Harold Guy Penson's headstone
Le Havre, Christmas, 1914. Harold Guy Penson is indicated by the red arrow.
Esther Annie Penson, née Cox
Claude Penson
Mabel Nancy Penson
- Radbone, C.
Army Service Record (from the 'Burnt Series' at the National Archives)
[Author's note: The 'Burnt Series' were the surviving WW1 Service Records recovered from the ruins of the depository in Arnside Street, London after the Luftwaffe dropped an incendiary bomb on it. They weren't only fire damaged but also water damaged by the Fire Brigade!]
Click on a thumbnail below to reveal the full-size image.
- Smith, F.E.
- Smith, J.H.
- Snoshill, A.W.
- Wallace, A.M.
Alexander Moultrie WALLACE (1881–1915)
See also Alexander’s younger brother, Cyril Walter Wallace.
Alexander Moultrie Wallace was born at South Leigh,Oxfordshire in 1881, the eldest son of Walter Edward Wallace (born in India on 12th September 1856, the son of John Duncan Campbell Wallace and Emily Hogg, and baptised at Cannanore, Madras on 23 October 1856) and Eleanor May Moultrie (born in Houghton-le-Spring, Durham and baptised there on 9th July 1856). Alexander’s parents were married in the Witney Registration District in the third quarter of 1880, and had the following children:- Alexander Moultrie Wallace (born in South Leigh, Oxfordshire and baptised there on 5th June 1881)
- Hugh Duncan Wallace (born in South Leigh, Oxfordshire and baptised there on 6th August 1882; died aged two and buried there on29 January 1885)
- Gerard Percy Wallace (born in South Leigh, Oxfordshire and baptised there on 2nd May 1885)
- Margaret Wallace (born in South Leigh, Oxfordshire and baptised there on 16th June 1887)
- Cyril Walter Wallace (born in Stony Stratford, Buckinghamshire in 1890).
By 1890 Alexander’s parents had moved to Stony Stratford in Buckinghamshire, where they appear to have run a small boarding school for boys in their home. At the time of the 1891census, Alexander was nine years old, and there were six pupils, aged between 13 and 16, living in his family’s house.
Alexander entered St. Edward’s School in north Oxford in Christmas Term 1894. He was a School Prefect, and a member of the Rugby Fifteen and Cricket Eleven. His father died at the age of 38 in the Marylebone registration district in the third quarter of 1895.
Alexander left St. Edward’s School in 1899. He travelled widely in Africa and Mexico, and then probably joined the regular army, as he served in the South African War in 1901.
At the time of the 1901 census his widowed mother, Eleanor, was living with her own widowed mother, Elizabeth Moultrie (71) and her two unmarried sisters, Ada (43) and Agatha (34) at The College, South Leigh (where Alexander’s parents had been living from 1881 to 1887). Of her children, only Margaret (13) was with her.
Alexander was probably out of the country at the time of the 1911 census, as he was certainly in Sierra Leone in 1913. Meanwhile his widowed mother Eleanor was still living in South Leigh with her own mother and sisters.
By 1914 Alexander Moultrie Wallace was living in Windsor, and in the autumn of that year he was married there (probably at St. Stephen’s Church) to Christina Maud Durnford (with his banns read at St. Nicholas’s Church in Marston). They lived in Windsor and had one daughter, born posthumously: Alec Christina Wallace (named after her father and born in Windsor on 21st July 1915).
In about 1914 Alexander’s widowed mother moved to 16 Frenchay Road in St. Margaret’s parish, Oxford which explains why her two sons are listed on the St. Margaret’s war memorial.
In the First World War Alexander Moultrie Wallace served as a Captain in the 3rd Battalion attached 2nd Battalion of the Northamptonshire Regiment.
He was killed in action at Neuve Chapelle in France at the age of 33 on 12th March 1915 and has no known grave. He is remembered on the Le Touret Memorial (Panel 28 to 30), on a plaque in the chapel of St. Edward’s School (right), in St. Stephen’s Lady Chapel in Windsor, and on the war memorial outside St. Margaret’s Church in north Oxford.
There is also a memorial to Alexander and his younger brother Cyril Walter Wallace (who died in Mesopotamia at the age of 26 a year later on 8th March 1916) in the churchyard at South Leigh, where the family had lived previously.
AFTER THE WAR- Alexander’s widowed mother, Mrs Eleanor May Wallace continued to live at 16 Frenchay Road until her death at the age of 74 on 14th December 1930. She was buried at South Leigh on 19th December 1930.
- Alexander’s widow, Mrs Christina Maud Wallace, married Alfred G. Osborn in the fourth quarter of 1918 in the Kensington registration district and they lived at 14 Sheet Street, Windsor.
- Alexander’s daughter, Alec Christina Wallace married James Godfrey Burr on 23rd September, 1939 and they had five children. She died on 14th October, 1964.
See also
- CWGC: WALLACE, Alexander Moultrie.
- Oxford Journal Illustrated, 7 April 1915 , “Heroes of the War”: photograph of A. Moultrie Wallace of South Leigh, Witney, who had died the previous month.
- South Leigh : Memorial to the two Wallace brothers.
- Cambridge University Library: Royal Commonwealth Society Library: Photograph album belonging to Alexander Moultrie Wallace when he was in Sierra Leone.
Top image © Images & Voices, Oxon County Council
Alexander Wallace in the Rugby XV of 1899 © St Edward’s School Archives
- Wallace, C.W.
See also Cyril’s older brother, Alexander Moultrie Wallace.
Cyril Walter Wallace was born in Stony Stratford, Buckinghamshire in 1890, the youngest son of Walter Edward Wallace (born in India on 12th September 1856, son of John Duncan Campbell Wallace and Emily Hogg, and baptised at Cannanore, Madras on 23 October 1856) and Eleanor May Moultrie (born in Houghton-le-Spring, Durham and baptised there on 9th July, 1856). Cyril’s parents were married in the Witney Registration District in the third quarter of 1880, and had the following children:- Alexander Moultrie Wallace (born in South Leigh, Oxfordshire and baptised there on 5th June 1881)
- Hugh Duncan Wallace (born in South Leigh, Oxfordshire and baptised there on 6th August 1882; died aged two and buried there on 29 January 1885)
- Gerard Percy Wallace (born in South Leigh, Oxfordshire and baptised there on 2nd May 1885)
- Margaret Wallace (born in South Leigh, Oxfordshire and baptised there on 16th June 1887)
- Cyril Walter Wallace (born in Stony Stratford, Buckinghamshire in 1890).
By 1890 the time of Cyril’s birth in 1890 his parents had moved to Stony Stratford in Buckinghamshire, where they appear to have run a small boarding school for boys in their home. At the time of the 1891 census Cyril was six months old, and there were six pupils, aged between 13 and 16, living in his family’s house.
Cyril’s father died at the age of 38 in the Marylebone registration district in the third quarter of 1895. At the time of the 1901 census his widowed mother Eleanor was living with her own widowed mother Elizabeth Moultrie (71) and her two unmarried sisters Ada (43) and Agatha (34) at The College, South Leigh. Of her children, only Margaret (13) was with her. Cyril (10) spent census night boarding at a preparatory school at The Gables, Portinscle, above Derwent.
Cyril spent the census night of 1911 at Pierremont Hall Preparatory School in Broadstairs, Kent, where he was an assistant master; and at the time war broke out he was a teacher at Bishop Cotton’s School, Bangalore. Meanwhile his widowed mother Eleanor was still living with her aged mother in South Leigh. In about 1914 she moved to 16 Frenchay Road in St. Margaret’s parish, Oxford which explains why her two sons are listed on the St. Margaret’s war memorial. Cyril is however described as being of South Leigh when probate was granted.
In the First World War Cyril Walter Wallace volunteered to serve in 1915, and was a Second Lieutenant in the Indian Army Reserve of Officers attached 47th Sikhs. He died in Mesopotamia at the age of 26 on 8 March 1916, and has no known grave. He is remembered on the Basra Memorial (Panel 43 and 65) and on the war memorial outside St. Margaret’s Church in north Oxford.There is also a memorial to Cyril and his older brother Alexander Moultrie Wallace (killed in action in France a year earlier at the age of 33 on 12 March 1915) in the churchyard at South
Leigh, where the family had lived previously.
Administration was granted in Oxford to his mother, Eleanor Mary Wallace, on 2 August 1916.
He left £254 17s. 1d.
AFTER THE WAR- Cyril’s widowed mother, Mrs Eleanor May Wallace continued to live at 16 Frenchay Road until her death at the age of 74 on 14 December, 1930. She was buried at South Leigh on 19th December, 1930.
See also:- CWGC: WALLACE, Cyril Walter (which names in error Cyril’s mother, Eleanor May Moultrie, as his wife).
- South Leigh : Memorial to the two Wallace brothers.
- Wilkins, F.A.
