| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
John Timothy Oliver was born in 1881 son of John and Fanny Oliver. He was baptised on 21 Aug 1881 at Walkington Parish Church. He had two brothers, Thomas born in 1873 and Samuel born in 1897 and 2 Sisters Emily born in 1880 and Lavinia in 1895. The family lived in Westend, Walkington and his father was an agricultural labourer.
By 1901 he was a private in the Cold Stream Guards, based in St. Georges Barracks in St. Martins in the Fields. He was nineteen years old and was known as Timothy Oliver.
By 1903 he had left the Guards and enrolled with Hull police as a police constable.
John married Jane Ann Claxon in at St Andrews Drypool on 7 May 1904
They had three children. John Timothy born in 1906, Gertrude born in 1909 both born in Hull and Annie was who was born in Durham.
By the 1911 Census John was a police constable in the Durham Constabulary and the family lived in Durham.
At beginning of the War they lived in Sunnyside, Northunberland. John re-joined the Coldstream Guards as a private enlisting at Rotherham, West Yorkshire. He was immediately sent to France with the expeditionary forces He took part in the winter operations of 1914 and died of wounds received in the trenches on Christmas day, at the Battle of Givenchy.
He is remembered at Le Touret Memorial France which commemorates over 13,400 British soldiers who were killed in a sector of the Western Front from the beginning of October 1914 to the eve of the Battle of Loos in late September 1915 and who have no known grave.
He was awarded the British War Medal and the Victory Medal posthumously
Includes photograph, information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |