Name
Reginald Victor Byron Loxley
14 March 1887
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
18/10/1918
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Captain
Royal Air Force
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
CITY OF PARIS CEMETERY, BATIGNOLLES, CLICHY
14. IV. 11th Transverse path.
France
Headstone Inscription
No Report
UK & Other Memorials
Northchurch Village Memorial. St Mary’s Church Window, Northchurch, Individual plaque, St Mary’s Church, Northchurch, Radley College Memorial Arch and Chapel, Radley, Oxfordshire
Pre War
Reginald Victor Byron Loxley (known as Roy) was born on 14 March 1887 at Fairford, Gloucestershire, the youngest son of Rev Arthur Smart Loxley and Alice Mary (nee Duncombe) and was baptised on 15 April 1887 at Fairford. He was one of five children.
His father died the following year, aged 42, and on the 1891 Census Roy was living with his widowed mother and siblings Vere, Gladys and Gerald and aunt Octavia Duncombe as well as three servants, at Little Cloisters, St Mary de Lode and College Precincts, Gloucestershire.
He was educated at Radley College, Abingdon, Oxon.
He was commissioned as 2nd Lieutenant in 3rd Battalion Gloucestershire Regt. A Militia (Later Territorial formation), but resigned soon after and emigrated to Australia becoming a motorcar dealer. By 1911 he had returned to England and was recorded on the Census as a boarder at the Rising Sun public house, Gloucester where he was living on 'private means'. He also spent time in Paris where he continued to sell cars.
Wartime Service
Soon after the outbreak of war, Roy left Paris and obtained a commission with the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. His service dates from 20 January 1915 as temporary Second-Lieutenant and he went with the RNAS to Gallipoli but was later evacuated to England from Mudros suffering from dysentery and was admitted to Haslar Hospital, Gosport, England on 19 September 1915.
He was Assistant Transport Officer for 3 Wing Royal Naval Air Service from July 1916 promoted to temporary Lieutenant on 5 October 1916. From July 1917 he was Transport Officer for a Flying school at Vendome and then on 8 October 1917 as Executive Officer for a RNAS Squadron at Dunkirk. [N.B. The RNAS was merged with the RFC to form the Royal Air Force on 1 April 1918.} He was appointed as Adjutant at the Department of Aircraft Production in Paris on 9 July 1918, later being promoted to Captain.
On 15 October 1918 Roy was admitted, with influenza, to the Astoria Hotel, Paris, then being used as a hospital, where he died of pneumonia (possibly an early Spanish Flu victim) on 18 October 1918.
He is buried in City of Paris Cemetery, Batignolles, Clichy, France.
Additional Information
His mother received pay owing of £345 10s 8d and she was granted probate of his estate on 17 October 1919, with effects of £318 16s 8d.
Brother Vere Duncombe Loxley, Captain, Royal Marine Light Infantry, died 13 November 1916, aged 43 and is buried in Knightsbridge Cemetery, Mesnil-Martinsart, France,
Acknowledgments
Neil Cooper, Brenda Palmer
Jonty Wild, 'Northchurch Memories' (Facebook) 18 October 2018
