Walter Harry Buckle
General information▶Date of birth: 19 June 1903 Place of birth: Cheltenham ▶Father: Richard Felix Buckle Mother: Charity Gillett ▶Spouse(s): Date(s) of marriage Place(s) of marriage: ▶Occupation: Motor mechanic; Army officer ▶Lifestory: Walter (“Wally”) Harry Buckle was born in 1903 in Cheltenham, the fourth and youngest son of gardener Richard Felix Buckle, of Charlton Kings, and his wife Charity (“Lottie”: née Gillett), of Brockhampton, when the couple lived at 5 Andover Retreat, Cheltenham. Buckle’s father died the following year and he and his siblings were brought up by his widowed mother. In 1911 the family lived at 30 New Street, Cheltenham, and his mother worked as a shopkeeper. Buckle worked as a young man making links for tank tractors at Such’s works in King Street, Cheltenham, and came to join the St Paul’s Boys’ Brigade. It was presumably here that he first came into contact with the Revd. Thomas Cave-Moyle, then Vicar of St Paul’s. By 1921 he lived as the adopted son of the Revd. Cave-Moyle, at St Paul’s Vicarage (now Clarence Villa), Clarence Square, where he was a “Student (Candidate for Holy Orders)”, though he did not ultimately pursue a career in the Church. His interest in machinery led to an interest in driving (fast), which sometimes brought him into conflict with the law. In 1923 he was summoned for driving a motorcycle without regard “to the danger of the public” up the Leckhampton Road; he collided with a lady cyclist coming from the opposite direction (he was fined £3 and had to pay the expenses of the witnesses of 15 shillings). In 1926, when he travelled on the Rawalpindi to Gibraltar he was still living at St Paul’s Vicarage, and was still a student. After his adoptive father the Revd. Cave-Moyles died in 1932 Buckle was left an annuity of £200 a year. His casual attitude towards cars led in 1937 to a fine of ten shillings for leaving his car on the roadside after “lighting-up time” without proper lights; at the time he was living on the Shurdington Road in Cheltenham. By 1938 he lived in Whitehall Court, in Westminster, but was fined £5 and had his driving licence endorsed for driving his car “at a very fast speed”, and without due care and attention on the Shurdington Road. He swerved to avoid another car, turned his own car over and was the only casualty, suffering a fractured pelvis, facial injuries, and concussion. He stated to the court that he had been in the motor trade for twelve years and had never previously been convicted of an offence. Buckle joined the Army in 1939, at the outbreak of war, and served as a Staff Captain with the British Expeditionary Force in France before the evacuation of Dunkirk. In 1941 he travelled to India, and was decorated with the Oak Leaf and was mentioned in dispatches for gallantry in Burma with the 14th Army, eventually as a Major in the Royal Army Service Corps. He died on 9 or 10 November 1945 at Kamptee (also Kamthi) in the Nagpur District of the Central Provinces, Bengal, and was buried there. His wealth at death was valued at just over £4,060. [He should not be confused with the Harold W. Buckle who married Cecilia Kate Boulton at Stow-on-the-Wold in 1923.] ▶Moved to Pittville from: (Born in Cheltenham.) Moved from Pittville to: London ▶Date of death: 10 November 1945 Place of death: Kamptee, Nagpur District, Central Provinces, Bengal ▶Date of burial: 11 November 1945 Place of burial: Kamptee, Bengal ▶Notes: Gloucestershire Echo 8 May 1840, 6 December 1945 ID: 19743 Contributor(s): John Simpson
Found no family members on the Pittville History Works Database (based on “relation to head” in the 1841-1911 census records and 1939 register records) |