| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
Cyril was born in 1895, the second of five sons of William Henry and Sarah Elizabeth Grantham of Beverley. William Henry was a hunter’s groom in 1911 when the census shows Cyril, aged 16, employed as a shipyard labourer.
He enlisted in the Army on 5 Aug 1914, the day after War was declared, serving as a Private in the Yorkshire Regiment and embarking for France in Apr 1915. He transferred to the Royal Flying Corps on 27 Mar 1916. Cyril’s trade in the Flying Corps was ‘rigger’ which was one of the most common trades, riggers were responsible for installing cables and fittings which controlled the flight surfaces and engine of the aircraft. He transferred on 1 Apr 1918 to the Royal Air Force, which was formed by the merger of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service. Cyril’s trade was ‘carpenter rigger’.
Having survived the war, Cyril made his career in the RAF. In Aug 1917 Cyril married Blanche Bruceina Thompson in the Parish Church of Norton, Derbyshire, their son, Ronald, was born in 1918. Ronald was baptised in 1925 in the Station Church at RAF Manston, Ramsgate, Kent, where Cyril and Blanche resided in the Married Quarters, Cyril’s rank at that time being Flight Sergeant. Cyril’s service in the RAF continued until Jan 1932. At the time of his discharge he was living in Hawkinge, near Folkestone, Kent.
In the 1939 Register, Cyril and Blanche are shown as living at Hucknall, Nottinghamshire, which was in an area where major aircraft development was taking place, and Cyril was employed as an aircraft inspector.
Cyril died aged 67, in Nottinghamshire in 1962.
Includes photograph, information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |