First World War in Headington & Marston
Roll of Honour of St Andrew’s Church, Old Headington

Frank Arthur Edmund HATHAWAY (1897–1917)

Hathaway is also listed on the All Saints’ Church Roll of Honour and thus appears twice in the “tour”)

Frank Arthur Edmund Hathaway was born in London on 27 August 1897, the son of William Alfred Hathaway (born in New Headington and baptised at St Andrew’s Church on 31 December 1865) and Clara Ann Dawson (born in Ardington, Berkshire in 1864, registered second quarter, and baptised there on 10 July 1864).

His parents were married in the Lambeth registration district near the end of 1889 and had six children, of whom five were still alive in 1911:

• William A. Hathaway (born at West Norwood, London in 1890, registered fourth quarter)
• Ellen Elizabeth Hathaway (born at West Norwood, London in 1891/2, registered first quarter of 1892)
• Albert Henry Hathaway (born at West Norwood, London in 1892/3, registered first quarter of 1893)
• Frank Arthur Edmund Hathaway (born in West Norwood, London on 27 August 1897
  and baptised as an “adult” (aged 16) at St Andrew’s Church, Headington on 17 June 1914)
• Harry Hathaway (born in West Norwood, London near the end of 1900).

Frank’s father William Hathaway grew up in Headington but moved to London in the 1880s to work as a milk carrier. He and his wife settled in West Norwood in the Borough of Lambeth after their marriage in 1889, and the 1891 census shows them living there at 83 Rommany Road with their first child William (7 months); they shared the house with another family.

They were still in Lambeth in 1901, but at a different address (15 Chalford Road).. His parents now had five children, including Frank himself, aged three; but their eldest son, William (10), was not at home, and spent census night in Old Headington with his grandparents George & Eliza Hathaway, at St Andrew’s Road.

In 1903 Frank’s father William Hathaway brought his family back to Headington, and they moved into 73 Lime Walk (then numbered 43). This is the house on the south-east corner of the junction of Lime Walk and All Saints Road, and the Hathaways started selling milk here, keeping a small number of cows near the street. Soon they rented the Wootten’s meadow between Old High Street and Osler Road (now built up with houses, including Stephen Road), and they built the shop shown below in their back garden in All Saints Road. The building on the left was where the horse-drawn milk carts were loaded, which explains the high door that has no steps.

William Hathaway senior is shown as a dairyman in Lime Walk in the 1911 census. Two of his children were working for him: William (20) was a milk carrier and Ellen (19) was an assistant in the business. Frank himself (13) and his younger brother Harry (10) were still at school.

Frank was baptised as an “adult” (aged 16) at St Andrew’s Church in Old Headington on 17 June 1914.

In the First World War Frank Hathaway served as a Private in 1st/4th Battalion of the Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry (Service No. 5075), and was killed in action at Flanders in Belgium at the age of 19 on 16 August 1917.

 

He is remembered on the Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing in Zonnebeke, Belgium (Panel 96 to 98).

 

Left: Photograph of Frank Hathaway’s name on the memorial, kindly supplied by British War Graves.

Frank Hathaway is remembered on the roll of honour of St Andrew’s Church (as well as that of All Saints’ where he lived) because it is evident from his adult baptism in 1914 that he attended that church; and also his family’s farm was in Wootten’s Meadow.