Roll of Honour of St Andrew’s Church, Old Headington

Harry Olivier Sumner GIBSON (1885–1917)

Harry Olivier Sumner Gibson, from
the Lancing College roll of honour

Harry Olivier Sumner Gibson was born at the Rookery in Old Headington on 13 May 1885. He was the son of Walter Sumner Gibson (born in Fawley, Hampshire in early 1849) and Julia Elizabeth Olivier (born in Wallingford, Berkshire near the beginning of 1852). Harry's second middle name, Sumner, is explained by the fact that his father was the son of William Gibson and Juliana Sumner (the daughter of Charles Richard Sumner, bishop of Winchester).

At the time of the 1881 census Harry's father Walter Sumner Gibson, who had been an undergraduate at Balliol College, was a single man of 32 and living alone with two servants in Godalming, where he was an assistant master at Charterhouse School. in 1883 he bought The Rookery (now Ruskin College) in Old Headington from the Revd J. W. A. Taylor, and took over the boys’ preparatory school that was based there. Meanwhile Harry's mother Julia Olivier was living in Poulshot, Wiltshire, where her father Henry Arnold Olivier was Rector.

The marriage of Harry’s parents took place at Crondall in Hampshire on 2 January 1884 and was announced thus in Jackson’s Oxford Journal two days later:

Jan 2, at All Saints’ Church, Crondall, Hants, Walter Sumner Gibson, of Headington, near Oxford, fifth son of the late Rev. W. Gibson, Rector of Fawley, Southampton, to Julia Elizabeth, eldest daughter of the Rev. Henry A. Olivier, formerly Rector of Poulshot, Devizes.

At the time of the 1891 census Harry (5) and his father Walter were paying a visit to Walter's brother-in-law Henry Heywood, the Vicar of Swinton in Lancashire, while Harry's mother Julia was home at The Rookery with her other three children – Arthur (4), Mabel (2), and Cuthbert (three months) – plus six servants (a nursemaid, parlourmaid, cook, two housemaids, and a nursery maid). Frank and Winifred were born in 1893 and 1897.

The photograph on the right shows Harry in about the autumn of 1891, when he was aged six. It is taken from a group photograph of the Gibson family with the boys of The Rookery School, and although it was a prep school it is possible that Gibson's own younger children started their education there. Harry went on to attend Hartford House School in Winchfield, Hampshire and then from 1897 to 1904 boarded at Winchester School, where he was School Prefect, won the Natural Science Prize, and was in the College XV.

In 1897 Harry’s father Walter Sumner Gibson sold The Rookery and went to work as a schoolmaster in London, and at the time of the 1901 census he was living at 197 Bedford Hill, Streatham with his family (plus five boarders and four servants). Harry himself was boarding at Winchester School on the night of the 1901 census.

In 1904 Harry won a scholarship to New College, Oxford and in 1908 he obtained his B.A. (2nd Class) in Natural Science. During 1908 he carried out biological research studies in Naples.

From 1909 to 1913 Harry was a Science master at Lancing College in Steyning, Sussex, and he can be seen living at the college at the time of the 1911 census, when he was 25. His father was then working as a private tutor in Tooting.

An announcement in The Times of 16 June 1913 announced that Harry Olivier Sumner Gibson had been appointed by the Board of Agriculture as “an Assistant Inspector (Non-Established) for fishery business, and generally for the purposes of the Fisheries Acts administered by the Board”.

♥ On 4 June 1914 at Oatland Church in Surrey, Harry Olivier Sumner Gibson married Hester Worth Townsend, who was born at Hope under Dinmore near Leominster, Herefordshire on 24 December 1886. She was the daughter of the Revd John H. Townsend of Oatlands Park, Surrey and his wife Adeline.

They had two children:

• John Sumner Townsend Gibson (born on 1 August 1915 in Sproughton, Suffolk)
• Helen Olivier Costeker Gibson (born on 5 April 1917 at Ivy Lodge, Bognor, Sussex and baptised at Bognor Church on 17 May).

Meanwhile Harry’s father was appointed an academic reader at Oxford University Press in 1914, and moved with his wife to 9 Lathbury Road in north Oxford.

Harry Gibson volunteered as soon as the war started, enlisting on 31 August 1914. He served as a Lieutenant in the 11th Battalion of the London Regiment (Finsbury Rifles). He was in Gallipoli in September 1915 and served in Egypt and on the Suez Canal from 1915 to 1917. He was killed in action near Wadi Gaza at the Second Battle of Gaza in Palestine at the age of 31 on 19 April 1917 when advancing with his platoon through “an exceedingly heavy barrage and crossfire from machine guns”.

Gibson is buried at the Gaza War Cemetery (XIV.F.8), and his war grave there has the added words “THINE EYES SHALL SEE THE KING IN HIS BEAUTY / R.I.P”. (Only 40% of war headstones bear an inscription such as this near their base: the main inscription was free, but families had to pay 3½d per letter for a personal message.)

Gibson is remembered on the roll of honour of St Andrew’s Church in Old Headington, and in Oxford on the war memorials of St Margaret’s Church, St Barnabas Church, and New College (below):

Administration was granted in London to his widow, Hester Worth Gibson, on 7 June 1918. He left £2,012, and his last address is given as Winton, St Albans.

His obituary in the Oxford Chronicle of 19 October 1917 is shown below:

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Postscript

Harry’s parents

Walter Sumner Gibson died at 9 Lathbury Road, Oxford at the age of 68 on 20 January 1918, and his effects came to £5,154 19s. 4d. The 1921 census shows Mrs Julia Elizabeth Gibson (69) living at that address with three of her children: Mabel (32), who was a stained-glass artist at Burlison & Grylls in London; Winifred (24), who was a clerk at the University Chest in Oxford; and Frank (28), who was a Lieutenant in the 1st North Staffordshire Regiment, plus their servant. Mrs Gibson died at that address at the age of 70 on 5 September 1922, and her effects came to £4,335 14s. 2d.

Harry’s widow

Mrs Hester Worth Gibson was living at 34 Station Road, Petersfield, Hampshire at the time of the 1921 census with her children John (5) and Helen (4) and their nurse. By the time of the 1939 census she and her children were living with her incapacitated mother Adeline Townsend and her unmarried sisters Annie and Mary at 50 Swan Street in Petersfield. She died at Mylors, Church Hanborough, Oxfordshire at the age of 93 on 15 July 1980. Her effects came to £70,912.

Harry’s children

• John Sumner Townsend Gibson (born 1915) was living at 50 Swan Street, Petersfield with his grandmother, two aunts, mother, and sister at the time of the 1939 Register in the home of Adeline Townsend. He was described as “Was temporarily employed as private Tutor” and “Recommended for R.A.F. by Oxford University Joint recruiting”. He married Dorothy Mary Williams (born 25 July 1923) in the Witney district in 1944 and they had one son, Peter J. T. Gibson, born in the Hampstead area on 19 July 1946. The family of three emigrated to Canada, and when in November 1956 they came back to England to spend five months at Mylor in Church Hanborough, John gave his occupation as a fisherman. John died in Canada on 3 May 2015.

• Helen Olivier Costeker Gibson (born 1917) was still living with her mother in 1939. Helen was later employed as calligrapher to the Ashmolean. She did not marry, and died at Church Hanborough on 30 December 2005.

Harry’s first cousin was the famous actor Laurence Olivier.