First World War in Headington and Marston
New Marston War Memorial

Richard Tirrell SHRIMPTON (1891–1918)

Some of this information is repeated under the previous entry for Richard’s brother Ernest Shrimpton

Richard Tirrell Shrimpton was born in Beckley in early 1891, the son of John Shrimpton (born in Latchford/Great Haseley in 1856/7, registered first quarter of 1857) and Louisa Mary Tirrell (born in Woodeaton and baptised at Holy Rood Church there on 26 July 1857).

His parents were married in the Bicester registration district (apparently in haste) in the second quarter of 1879 and they had fifteen children over the next nineteen years (of whom ten were still alive in 1911). These included:

• Christina Mary Shrimpton (born at Stonehouse Farm, Bletchingdon and baptised at St Giles Church, Bletchingdon on 16 November 1879)
• John Arthur Shrimpton (born at Stonehouse Farm, Bletchingdon and baptised at St Giles Church, Bletchingdon on 24 October 1880)
• Frank Shrimpton (born in Beckley and baptised at the church there on 23 July 1882)
• Mabel Susanna Shrimpton (born in Beckley and baptised at the church there on 18 November 1883)
• Kathleen Louisa Shrimpton (born in Beckley and baptised at the church there on 12 October 1884)
• Ernest Wooltorton Shrimpton (born in Beckley and baptised at the church there on 25 October 1885)
• Thomas Alfred Shrimpton (born in Beckley and baptised at the church there on 24 October 1886; died aged 5 and buried at Beckley on 11 June 1891)
• Dorothy Helen Shrimpton (born in Beckley in and baptised at the church there on 5 October 1888; died aged 7 (death registered in Headington District third quarter of 1895)
• Alice Caroline Shrimpton (born in Beckley and baptised at the church there on 15 December 1889)
• Richard Tirrell Shrimpton (born in Beckley and baptised at the church there on 5 April 1891)
• Marian Shrimpton (born in Beckley and baptised at the church there on 15 May 1892)
• Alfred Shrimpton (born in Old Marston and baptised in St Nicholas’s Church on 12 January 1894)
• Ethel Shrimpton (born in Marston, baptised at St Andrew’s Church, Headington on 26 October (?November) 1896, and buried in its churchyard on 26 October 1896)
• Hilda Shrimpton (born in New Marston, baptised at St Andrew’s Church, Headington on 16 March 1898, and buried in its churchyard on the same day).

The 1881 census shows Richard’s parents living at Grove Farm, Beckley with their first two children. His father John (24) was a farmer of 155 acres employing four men and one boy, and the family also had an indoor servant; his mother too was a farmer’s daughter.

By the time of the 1891 census Richard’s parents were still at Grove Farm and had ten children in all, with Richard, the youngest, then just two months old. Two of Richard’s brothers (Ernest and Thomas) were not with the family in 1891: they had been sent to live permanently with their grandmother, Mary Shrimpton, and their unmarried uncle Arthur Shrimpton, who farmed together in Great Haseley.

By 1893 Richard’s father had moved his family to Old Marston, where he continued to farm. But by 1897, when they moved to New Marston, the family appear to have come down in the world, and his father started to work as a tram driver. The 1901 family shows the family living in William Street, and Richard was then a schoolboy of ten.

Richard joined the Queen’s Own Oxfordshire Hussars when he was 18 in March 1909, but by the time of the 1911 census he was an apprentice to a compositor at the Baxter Press in Oxford. His father was still a bus driver for the Oxford Tram Company, and the family are shown living at the present 26 William Street.

Richard had joined the Composing Room of Oxford University Press by the time the war broke out, and around the time of the war the family moved to the present 46 William Street in New Marston.

In the First World War Richard Tirrell Shrimpton served in the Queen’s Own Oxfordshire Hussars (Service No. 285021). He mobilized as a Sergeant on 9 August 1914, serving in England to 20 September, and was in France from that date until 26 July 1915, when he was invalided home with appendicitis. He was in hospital until 4 October 1915, and then served in Ireland from 14 October 1915 to November 1916.

He then served in France, fighting in 1915 at the first Battle of Ypres, Loos, Arras; on 21 June 1917 at the Guillemont Farm raid; and on 28 November at Bourlon Wood. He was promoted to Squadron Sergeant Major in April 1918, and died at the Somme in France at the age of 27 on 9 August 1918.

 

 

Richard Tirrell Shrimpton is buried in the Caix British Cemetery (I.AA.1) and is remembered on the New Marston War Memorial on the Marston Road, Oxford.

 

 

Left: Photograph of Richard Shrimpton’s grave in Caix, France, kindly supplied by British War Graves. The text reads:

[Emblem of Queen’s Own Oxfordshire Hussars,
with their name on the ribbon below]

285021 SQD SERJT. MAJOR
R. T. SHRIMPTON
Q. O. OXFORDSHIRE HUSSARS
9TH AUGUST 1918 AGE 27

†
LOST AWHILE
OUR TREASURED LOVE
[GAINED FOR EVER] SAFE ABOVE

 

 

Richard’s older brother Ernest is also listed on the New Marston war memorial: he died on 5 January 1918 while serving in the US Navy.