Name
Hubert John Oldring
1894
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
16/10/1915
21
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
20933
Grenadier Guards
4th Bn.
No. 1 Coy.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
LOOS MEMORIAL
Panel 5 to 7.
France
Headstone Inscription
N/A
UK & Other Memorials
St Francis of Assisi Memorial, Hammerfield, Hemel Hempstead Town Memorial, Marlowes Baptist Church, Marlowes, St John the Evangelist Church Memorial, Boxmoor, John Dickinson & Co Memorial, Apsley Mills, Apsley
Pre War
Hubert John Oldring was born in 1894 in Hemel Hempstead, the son of George and Ellen Oldring, and one of 9 children.
On the 1901 Census the family were living at 19 Glen View Road, Hammerfield, Hemel Hempstead and his father was working as a bricklayer's labourer.
By 1911 he had moved out of the family home and was living as a boarder with William and Annie Brooke at 80 St Johns Road, Boxmoor, Hemel Hempstead, Herts. He was working as a Baker for Mr Brooke.
Wartime Service
He enlisted in London in November 1914 and joined the 4th (Reserve) Battalion of the Grenadier Guards, completing his basic training at Chelsea Barracks. He made a visit home to Hemel Hempstead in early August before being sent to France on 15 August 1915.
He saw action at the Battle of Loos from 25 September and survived the initial assault, but was killed in action near Hohenzollern on 16th October 1915 when the Germans made a counter attack.
Hubert was 21 years old and had been in France for only two months.
He has no known grave and his name is commemorated on the Loos Memorial, Pas de Calais, France.
Additional Information
His father received a war gratuity of £3 and pay owing of £4 18s 9d. A memorial service was held at Marlowes Baptist Church on 29 October 1916 for Hubert Oldring and seven other members of the congregation who had been killed. Brother to Edward Manning Oldring who died of influenza, as a result of war service, in 1919 and is buried in Hemel Hempstead Cemetery. Brother-in-law to Percy Hampson who died in the Quintinshill rail disaster in 1915 in Dumfries, Scotland, along with 214 soldiers who were en route to Gallipoli. The worst rail disaster in British history.
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
Jonty Wild, www.hemelatwar.org, www.dacorumheritage.org., www.hemelheroes.com
