First World War in Headington and Marston
New Marston War Memorial

Frederick GRAY (1888–1917)

Frederick Gray was born in New Marston in 1888, the son of William Gray (born in Great Yarmouth in 1842/3) and Sarah (surname unknown, born in St Thomas’s, Oxford in c.1847). His parents were married by early 1871 and had the following children:

• Elizabeth Gray (born in St Thomas’s, Oxford in 1873/4)
• Harriet Gray (born in St Thomas’s, Oxford in 1875/6)
• Emily Gray (born in St Thomas’s, Oxford in 1877/8)
• William Gray junior (born in St Ebbe’s, Oxford in about May 1880)
• Alfred Gray (born in New Marston, registered Headington district first quarter, and baptised at St Nicholas’s Church, Old Marston on 25 March 1883)
• Eliza Gray (born in New Marston and baptised at St Nicholas’s Church, Old Marston on 3 October 1886)
• Frederick Gray (born in New Marston in 1888, registered Headington district fourth quarter)
• George Gray (born in New Marston in 1891, registered Headington district second quarter)

(Most of the children born prior to 1888 do not appear to have had their births registered; and none of them was baptised at St Thomas’s Church.)

Frederick’s father was a bricklayer. At the time of the 1871 census he and Sarah were lodging in Oxford at 50 High Street, St Thomas in the house of John Sergeant, a market porter. Their first three children were born in that parish.

Between 1878 and 1880 Frederick’s parents moved to St Ebbe’s, Oxford, and the 1881 census shows them living there at 18 Church Street with their first four children.

By 1883 they had moved to New Marston, where Frederick himself was born in 1888. The 1891 census shows the family living at Hazel Terrace, which may have been in Ferry Road. Frederick was then 2½, and his eldest sister Elizabeth (18) had already left home and was working as a housemaid at a school for young ladies at 5 & 6 Fyfield Road, Oxford.

At the time of the 1901 census the family’s address is shown as Ferry Road, New Marston. Frederick (12) and his younger brother George (9) were at school, while his older brothers William (20) and Alfred (19) were now builder’s labourers, and his sister Eliza (14) was at home, probably helping her mother.

Frederick’s mother Sarah Gray died in the Headington registration district in the fourth quarter of 1905 (with her age at death given as 53, which does not tally with her age in the censuses).

At the time of the 1911 census the family was living at Edgeway Road in New Marston. Frederick (22) was working as an athletics groundsman for a college and living with his widower father (68), who was still working as a bricklayer. Four of his grown-up siblings were still at home: William (31) and Alfred (29), who were bricklayers’ labourers; George (20) who was a college servant; and Eliza (24), who was doubtless looking after them all. Eliza got married at the end of that year.

In the First World War Frederick Gray served as a Lance Corporal in the 6th Battalion of the Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry (Service No. 10523). He was killed in action in Belgium at the age of about 29 on 20 September 1917.

He has no known grave, but is remembered on the Tyne Cot Memorial (Panel 96 to 98) and on the New Marston War Memorial on the Marston Road, Oxford.

 

Left: Photograph of F. Gray’s name on the Tyne Cot Memorial,
kindly supplied by the British War Graves project