George Tinline Button (1885–1961)
Mayor of Oxford 1929/30
George Button in 1929/30 (Picture Oxon 0655095)
George Tinline Button was born in Durban, Natal Province, South Africa on 11 April 1885.
He was sent to Winchester School in England, and the 1901 census shows him at the age of 15 in a large school boarding house at 1 Compton Road in Winchester.
He then went up to New College at the University of Oxford. He served with the Infantry Unit of the Oxford University Contingent, Senior Division, Officers Training Corps, and was gazetted Second Lieutenant on 20 October 1909.
Near the beginning of 1911 in the Headington registration district, George Tinline Button married Elizabeth Dorothy Pankerd. They do not appear to have had any children.
As soon as war broke out in August 1914 he enlisted in the 3rd Regiment of the Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry and was sent to France as a Captain. He was wounded the same month and was a prisoner of war from August 1914 to 1918.
By the time of the 1921 census Button (36), described as a full-time student of Geology at the University of Oxford, was living at 8 Marston Ferry Road in Oxford with his wife Elizabeth (34) and their cook and their housemaid-cum-parlourmaid.
In 1924 and 1927 Button was elected as Conservative councillor for the North Ward.
George Tinline Button was elected Mayor of Oxford for 1929/30, and in 1935 was described as a Justice of the Peace.
He and his wife retired to a house called Ravenswell in Kingswear, Devon, and can be seen there in the 1939 Register.
His wife Elizabeth Button was buried at Kingswear on 11 September 1956.
Near the end of 1959 in Brighton, George Tinline Button married his second wife Sylvia Alexandra Knowles.
† George Tinline Button was still based at Ravenswell when he died at Corsby Lodge Nursing Home, Sheddon Road, Torquay on 15 December 1961 at the age of 76, and was buried at Kingswear Cemetery four days later. His gravestone reads:
GEORGE TINLINE BUTTON
OF
DURBAN, OXFORD AND KINGSWEAR
11TH APRIL 1885 — 15TH DECEMBER 1961
DEARLY LOVED BY ALL
His effects came to £54,543 12s., and his executrix was his second wife, Sylvia Alexandra Button.
See also:
- 1901 census: Winchester (St Thomas), 1082/81
