GRAY Oliver

Casualty’s name is William Oliver Gray

Evesham Journal and Four Shires Advertiser, 16th September 1916:
HAMPTON SOLDIER KILLED
Mr. and Mrs. William Gray, of New-road, Great Hampton, have received official news of the death of their son, Pte. William Oliver Gray, of the Worcesters.  He was 24 years of age in January last, and joined a few weeks after the war broke out.  He was wounded at the battle to Neuve Chapelle, and after being in hospital for thirteen weeks came home for seven day’s leave.  Before the war he was in the employ of Messrs. Espley & Co., Ltds., of Evesham, as a bricklayer.  The first news of his death was conveyed in a letter from another Hampton soldier, Pte. C. Rogers, who in a letter home said that Pte. Gray was killed on August 24.  Mr. and Mrs. Gray have another son in the Army, Pte. Joseph Gray, of the Worcesters, who is at Salonika; another son, Charles, also joined the Army and saw service abroad, but he was been discharged.

William Gray was the son of William and Ellen Gray (nee Kinchin) who were married in 1890.

William Gray is remembered on his parents grave in St Andrew’s Churchyard, Great Hampton.

The clock on Hampton St Andrew’s Church is a war memorial to WW1 and is inscribed with the words: War Memorial 1914-18.

The tenor bell is inscribed “also in memory of the sons of Hampton who died for the sacred cause of liberty and freedom”.  The name of Alfred Bowell is inscribed on one of the bells, his granddaughter is currently a bell ringer at the church.

A photograph of Private W.O. Gray of Great Hampton can be found in Berrow’s Worcester Journal Supplement, Saturday, 9th September 1916, available at Worcestershire Archives.

William Gray has no known grave, the photograph available shows his name on Thiepval Memorial as W.O. Gray.