Reginald Harry Neville PRIOR (1894/5–1917)
Reginald Prior (left) and older brother Robin
Reginald Harry Neville Prior (known as Rex) was born at Highfield Park (now the Park Hospital building) on Old Road, Headington in 1894/5, the youngest child of Nehemiah Harry Neville Prior, known as Harry (born at Great Coggeshall, Essex on 21 January 1842) and Martha Wallis Williams (born in Summertown near Oxford in 1850, registered third quarter).
His parents were married at Summertown Congregational Church on 20 July 1870 and had six children:
- Sydney Herbert Prior (born at Faringdon and baptised there on 26 April 1874)
- Cordelia Mary Prior (born at Faringdon and baptised there on 2 February 1878)
- Percy Neville Prior (born at Faringdon and baptised there on 29 August 1880)
- Gladys Mary Prior (born at Highfield House and baptised at Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry on 29 May 1887)
- Robin Sylvio Prior (born at Highfield House and baptised at Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry on 29 May 1892)
- Reginald Harry Neville Prior (born at Highfield House in 1894/5, birth registered Headington district first quarter of 1895).
Rex’s father (known as Harry) was a successful furniture salesman with a large shop at 17 Queen Street, Oxford and later another at 200 Cowley Road.
At the time of the 1871 census Rex’s parents were living with one servant at 9 Marlborough Street in Faringdon, and his father at the age of 29 was already a master cabinet maker employing 15 men and one boy.
His father was still living there with his wife in 1881, and their first three children, as well as his father Robert Prior and his mother-in-law Eliza Williams (widow of the Oxford tailor Adin Williams). He was now employing eight men and four boys, and the family had three servants.
In about 1886 the Prior family moved into a new mansion on Old Road in Headington (below) called Highfield Park or House (now the Park Hospital). Its massive park stretched as far as the Warneford Hospital. Rex’s parents can be seen there in the 1891 census with their first four children, and just one servant (a cook). Sydney (18) was now a student of Natural Sciences at Exeter College, Oxford.
Rex was born at Highfield Park and spent the first 14 years of his life there. The 1901 census shows him there at the age of 6 with his parents and his five older siblings. Sydney (28) was now the maker of the “Highfield Cycle”; Cordelia was an Oxford Home Student; and Percy was an undergraduate at Oxford. Again they had just one general servant.
The Prior family appear to have suffered a financial loss, and In 1908 they moved to a smaller house in The Ridings at the foot of Shotover, also in Quarry parish.
At the time of the 1911 census, all six of the children were still unmarried and living with their parents: Sydney (38) was a motor and cycle maker, Cordelia (33) had no occupation; Percy (30) was a solicitor’s managing clerk; Gladys (23) was a farmer; and both Robin Sylvio (19) and Rex himself (16) are described as students.
Rex Prior did not follow his older siblings to the University of Oxford.
Left: Rex’s father, (Nehemiah) Harry Neville Prior
In the First World War Reginald Harry Neville Prior (Rex) served as an airman (2nd class) in the 2nd Aircraft Depot of the Royal Flying Corps (Service No. 65874). He died of pneumonia at the age of 22 in France on 1 May 1917 and is buried in Doullens Communal Cemetery (Extension No.1, V. E.45). He is listed on the stone plaque in the porch of Holy Trinity Church in Headington Quarry.
Postscript
Rex’s parents
- Mrs Martha Wallis Prior died at the age of 69 on 8 July 1920 in the Headington registration district, but she is not recorded as having been buried in Headington.
- Nehemiah Harry Neville Prior died in Headington at the age of 89 on 14 March 1931 and is buried in Holy Trinity churchyard.
Rex’s siblings
- Robin Sylvio Prior (born 1892) married Emily V. Sharpley in the Maidenhead district in the first quarter of 1920, and the birth of their daughter Christine V. Prior was registered there in the first quarter of 1921. Emily (34) died in Maidenhead in the third quarter of that year, and on 7 November 1929 Robin married her niece, Pauline Ruth Symmons at Maidenhead Methodist Chapel: they had four children together: Helen, Mary, Richard, and Peter. He died in 1978
- Rex’s other five siblings never married. Cordelia Mary Prior died in the Oxford district at the age of 89 (first quarter of 1968).
Rex’s maternal grandfather,
Adin Williams
Rex’s mother’s family
Rex’s mother Martha Wallis Williams (born 1850), was the daughter of Adin Williams (born 1803/4): he had started off as a mercer’s assistant at 136 High Street, Oxford and by 1861 had taken over the shop.
Martha had married Harry Prior in 1870, so had already left home by the time of the 1871 census, which shows her father, Adin Williams (67) living in Summertown, at Church House in Church Street (now Rogers Street), with his wife Eliza Ruth Williams, née Bolton (60) and their three unmarried sons:
- George St Swithin Williams (38), a solicitor (born in Oxford in 1833/4)
- Daniel Williams (34), no occupation (born in 1837/8)
- John Horatio Williams (22), master tailor and mercer (born in 1849/50).
The family had just one servant in 1871: seventeen-year-old Emma Ewers (sometimes written as Hewers), born in Summertown in 1854. (She was the daughter of Harriet Ewers, née Hawkins, who before her marriage had herself been the servant of the Williams family in Rogers Street: she can be seen with them in the 1841 census, when she was fifteen and George was eight.)
Soon after the 1871 census George St Swithin Williams and Emma Ewers appear to have been married (possibly in Scotland or abroad, as Emma was still a minor). Married or not, they had two children:
- Winter Williams (born in 1875 in Ryde, Isle of Wight)
- Ivy Williams (born on 7 September 1877 in Newton Abbot, Devon).
George St Swithin Williams had a solicitor’s office over his father’s shop at 136 High Street, Oxford in 1866; but in 1875 following his elopement he appears to have moved away from Oxford. His father, Adin Williams, died in 1876, and by 1880 he was back in his father’s old office at 136 High Street. Jackson’s Oxford Journal for 14 October 1882 reports: “Alterations have been made to No. 9, King Edward-street, consisting of new front, strong room, fittings, &c. for Mr. St. Swithin Williams. Messrs Symm and Co. are the builders, and Mr. Codd, architect.”
His mother Eliza Ruth Williams died in Oxford in 1884.
George and his young wife appear to be missing from the 1881 and 1891 censuses (which only cover England & Wales), but may have been in Warwickshire in 1897. By the time of the 1901 census, however, they are back in Oxford and listed at 12 King Edward Street: George (67), described as a banker & solicitor, was living with his wife Emma (46) and his children Winter (25), who was a barrister, and Ivy (23), who was a law student, plus their two servants.
Winter Williams died on 14 July 1903 after an accident; his father George St Swithin Williams died in Oxford in 1904, and his mother Emma Williams died London in 1921. Ivy Williams became the first woman barrister in England (see Wikipedia; her entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; and Imagining Ivy Williams). She died on 18 February 1966.
See also
- CWGC: Reginald Harry Neville (Rex) Prior
- Headington community website: The Priors’ home at Highfield Park and Sydney Prior’s motor and cycle shop
- Wikipedia: Royal Flying Corps
Back to Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry roll of honour