Sub-Lieutenant Owen Jardine HOBBS (1907)

Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve; 8th (Anson) Battalion, 63rd (Royal Naval) Division
Born 6 April 1889 in Carlisle
Killed in action 13 November 1916, aged 27
Buried at Ancre British Cemetery, Beaumont-Hamel, Somme, France.

Owen Hobbs was the second son of the Revd Owen Knights Hobbs and Eliza, née Carruthers, of Batley, Yorkshire. He was married to Maud Emily, née Gautrey, of 162 Court Lane, Dulwich, London – she died in 1915.

He was educated at Batley Grammar School, took his BA in 1910 and his MA in 1914. Whilst at Oxford he won a half blue for water polo. He took a BSc degree at London University. Before the war he taught in Cardiff, Chelmsford, and at King Edward VI Grammar School in Southampton.

He joined the 2/10th (Public Schools) Battalion, Middlesex Regiment in 1915, which was attached to the 53rd Welsh Division, and served at Gallipoli—where he was one of the last to leave Cape Helles at the evacuation—and in France.

He was killed in action at Beaumont Hamel on 13 November 1916.