Inscriptions: Memorial to Edgar George Wilson
IN MEMORY OF
EDGAR GEORGE WILSON
WHO, IN RESCUING TWO BOYS
FROM DROWNING, LOST HIS LIFE,
JUNE 15, 1889, AGED 21 YEARS
———
ERECTED UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE
OXFORD YOUNG MEN’S CHRISTIAN
ASSOCIATION, BY PUBLIC SUBSCRIPTION.
UNVEILED NOVEMBER 7 BY THE MAYOR
OF OXFORD WALTER GRAY ESQ.
This obelisk is situated on this footpath which runs alongside the River Thames from Osney to Folly Bridge, near to a footbridge and railway bridge:
The memorial was erected by Mr White of Walton Street on ground given by University College. The cost was £22, which was raised by subscriptions from about 2,000 Oxford citizens, 200 of whom attended on 7 November 1889 when it was unveiled by Walter Gray.
It is a Grade II listed structure
(list entry 1049076)
The small picture above shows the scene of the drowning. Immediately ahead is a small footbridge known as Boney’s Bridge (whose name probably has a connection with Napoleon Bonaparte) spanning the point where the Hincksey (or Hinksey) Stream enters the Thames. Confusingly the nearby GWR railway bridge also appears to have been wrongly known as Boney’s Bridge, and less than three years later the confusion is manifest in this article in the local newspaper, which refers to the footpath as being Boney's Bridge, but in the inquest report immediately following describes the railway bridge as Boney's Bridge and the original bridge of that name simply as a footbridge:
- Transcript of report and inquest in Jackson’s Oxford Journal of 22 June 1889
Flowers were laid at the obelisk on 15 June 2009 (exactly 120 years after Wilson drowned) at a gathering organized by Oxford Mail columnist Peter Unsworth of the Two relatives of Christopher Green (one of the two boys rescued) attended the ceremony: his great-grandson Kevin Green and his niece Mrs Barbara Cox (below).
What exactly happened?
Edgar George Wilson was an assistant to the chemist William Luff at 24 Cornmarket Street, and lived with his parents and siblings at 14 Abbey Road in West Oxford (right). On Saturday 15 June 1889 he came home at lunchtime to help one of his sisters prepare for her music examination. Evidently he was not in a hurry to get back, because after leaving home at about 2.15pm he crossed the Botley Road and started on the the long riverside walk back to Cornmarket via Osney and Folly Bridge.
When he saw Christopher Green (9) and Thomas Hazell (10) in trouble in the water, he appears to have jumped in fully clothed to rescue them, even though he was not strong and could barely swim. The boys got out of the water, but Edgar drowned, possibly because one of his arms had become entangled in the boys’ fishing lines.
His body was taken to the mortuary at Gloucester Green, but was soon released by the Coroner and taken to his own home. He was buried in St Thomas's churchyard a week later on 22 June 1889.
The family of Edgar George Wilson
Edgar’s father was the Revd George Wilson, Minister of the Baptist chapel in Commercial Street, who had been born in Londonderry, but moved with his family moved to England while he was still a baby, and in 1841 he was one year old and living in Portland in Dorset.
Edgar's mother was Edith Comben, who was born in Portland.
Edgar's parents were married in Portland In the third quarter of 1865, probably in a Baptist chapel. Their first three children were born in Portland: Edith Anne Wilson (1867), Edgar George Wilson himself (1868), and Archibald Wilson (1870).
By 1871 they had moved to Ordinance Road in Yarmouth, where Edgar's father (now 30) was a sailors’ missionary. Another two children, Lizzie Wilson and Mary Louisa Wilson, were born there in 1873 and 1876 respectively.
The family then appear to have moved to Dawley in Shropshire, where their youngest child Florence Wilson was born in 1880,
By the time of the 1881 census Edgar's father was a Baptist minister, living in Totteridge Road, Wycombe.
The Wilsons’ Oxford home at 14 Abbey Road (right) was built in about 1887 and they were probably its first occupants: they were certainly there by the time the 1889 street directory was published. They did not stay in Oxford for very long: they are still listed in the house in the 1890 directory (the year that Edgar was drowned), but gone by 1891.
The family appears to be missing from the 1891 census, apart from young Archibald (21), who can be found lodging in Bournemouth and was, like his ill-fated brother, a chemist’s assistant.
By the time of the 1901 census, Edgar's father George (60) was still a Baptist minister, now living at Newton Villa in Barrow-on-Soar, Leicestershire with Edith (56) and two of their daughters: Lizzie (27) and Florence (20). Lizzie was probably the sister whom Edgar had been helping to prepare for her music examination, because she is described in the census as being a Professor (teacher) of Music working from home.
Who were the boys who were rescued?
Thomas Henry Hazell or Hazzell (born 1879)
Thomas's father, Henry Hazell, who worked as a labourer, had been born in Chaddleworth, Berkshire in 1851 and his mother Rachel in Catmore, Berkshire in c.1855. No marriage has been found for his parents. They had three children: Mary Jane Hazell (born in West Ilsley in 1874/5), George James Hazell (born in Catmore in 1876), and Thomas Henry Hazell himself (born in Oxford on 15 February 1879). All three children were officially registered with their surname spelt Hazzell.
The 1881 census shows Thomas (2) living with his family at 7 Lion Place in St Ebbe's.
By 1891 the family had moved to 1 Wharton's Row in St Ebbe's: Thomas (12) had already left school, while his sister Mary Jane (16) was a general servant and his brother George (14) was a a “printer taking off”.
By 1901 the Hazells were living in York Place, St Clement’s. Thomas (now 22) was a cattle man on a local farm.
On 17 August 1902 at St Mary's Church, Ipsden, Thomas Henry Hazell (23), described as a labourer, married Emma Louisa Bough, the daughter of a tradesman. Both were aged 23 and living in Ipsden at the time of their marriage, Emma was a single mother with a two-year-old son, Leonard Arnold Yeomans Bough (born at 3 Cherwell Cottages, St Clement's and baptised at the church there on 26 February 1900).
In 1911, when he was 33, Hazell was a cowman, boarding with another cowman and his wife at a farm in Launton. He now described himself as single, and when he enlisted in the Royal Air Force on 19 May 1918 at the age of 39 he gave his mother Rachel Hazell and not his wife as his next-of-kin.
At the time of the 1939 Register Hazell, now aged 60, was still working as a cowman and living at 6 Council Cottages, Henley-on-Thames, once again without his wife.
Emma Louisa Hazell died in Wiltshire on 6 October 1955 and her probate record described her as “wife of Thomas Henry Hazell", and her executor was the wife of her son Leonard Arnold Yeomans Bough.
Christopher Green (1880–1917)
Christopher's father Frederick Green, who worked as a cab driver/groom, had been born in Oxford in.1855 and was baptised at St Thomas's Church on 25 July that year. Christopher's mother Elizabeth Green (who had the same surname as her future husband), had been born in Bladon: there are discrepancies with her age, but she was probably the baby of that name baptised at Bladon on 1 February 1852. Christopher's parents were married in Bladon on 29 July 1878 and had eleven children, all born in St Ebbe's: Frederick Green (1878), Louisa Frances Green (1879, died age 3); Christopher Green himself (1880), Alice Green (1882), James Green (1884), George Green (1885), Lily Green (1886), Annie Green (1889), Kate Green (1890), Louisa Green (1892), and Edith Green (1895).
Christopher was born at 14 Wood Street, St Ebbe's on 9 November 1880, and can be seen there with his family as a four-month old baby at the time of the 1881 census. By the time he was rescued in 1889 his family appear to have been living at 75 Blackfriars Road: they were certainly at that address at the time of the 1891 census when Christopher (11) was still at school.
By 1901 his family was living at 81 Blackfriars Road. Christopher (20) was then a bricklayer’s labourer, while his brother James was a machine boy at the University Press and George was a draper’s porter.
On 1 June 1903 at Summertown Church, Christopher Green, described as a labourer, married Ada Bertha Tritton: both were then living at 3 Silman's Row on the Woodstock Road in Summertown. They had eight children: Christopher Charles Green (1904, died shortly after birth), Elsie Mabel Green (1905), William Arthur Green (1907), Alice Rose Green (1908), Percival John Green(1908), George Edward Green (1911), Amy Rose Green (1913), and Albert Edward Green (1915).
At the time of the 1911 census Christopher was still working as a bricklayer’s labourer and living with his wife and children at 10 Silman’s Row, Summertown, but by 1917 they had moved to 10 Black Horse Lane on the Woodstock Road in Summertown.
In the First World War Christopher Green joined the Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry and died of wounds on 8 August 1917 aged 36, near Paschendale. He was buried at the Dozinghem Military Cemetery in Belgium. After his death his wife and children were living in Blackhorse Lane off the Woodstock Road in Summertown.
- Christopher Green's page on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission's website
- More about his war service by his granddaughter (includes a photograph)
Oxford Mail, 16 June 2009:
“Ceremony honours drowned hero, 120 years after tragedy”
Osney Railway Bridges section of “Where Thames Smooth Waters Glide”