Name
Joseph Frank (Frank) Olney
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Driver
182823
Royal Field Artillery
79th Battery
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Pirton School Memorial
Biography
Joseph appears on the School War Memorial, confirming that he attended the school. Parish records suggest only one man of this name who could have served, and he was born in Highgate, Middlesex in about 1890. He was the son of Sarah Olney and he appears as Frank in the 1911 census. This information was derived from census records before 1911. Other records show that Sarah was married to Thomas Olney, who was a railway labourer; as such he would have worked away from Pirton and this could explain his absence from some census records. More recently Ian Saggers, Frank’s grandson, was able to add more information. Frank was indeed the son of Tom and Sarah (née Jarvis) and born on August 24th 1889. Tom was born and raised in Ickleford and indeed as a railway worker he moved around with his family, but eventually settled in Pirton and Tom was subsequently described as an agricultural labourer.
Baptism and census records list eleven children, but, by 1911, one had died. At this time, only ten can be identified with certainty: they are Alice (b 1896), Annie Eliza (b c1886), Rose (b 1889), Joseph Frank (b 1890), Sidney (b c1894), Lily (b 1896) and Frederick Charles (b 1900), Charles (b c1901), Leonard (b c1905) and Reginald (b 1910). His brother Sidney also served and survived.
In 1911, Frank was living in the family home and working as a farm labourer on one of the local farms. Like some of his brothers he was known by a nickname, ‘Nack’; Charles was ‘Dasher’, Len ‘Odod’ and Reg ‘Weary’.
The Parish Magazine of February 1917 records Frank as being ‘called up’ and serving in the Royal Field Artillery. A newspaper article, believed to be from spring 1918, confirms that he was the brother of Sidney and the eldest son of Mr and Mrs Thomas Olney of Andrew’s Cottages (the three cottages at the bottom of the High Street). It also informs us that Joseph or Frank was serving in India. The family believe that he was a driver of a 13 pounder field gun and its attendant limber and although he was reluctant to talk about it, they think that he spent the whole of his army career in India and was part of the Governor General/Viceroy honour guard. As such they spent approximately six months of the year in Delhi with the remainder in the so called summer capital, Shimla.
In 1917 he wrote a postcard to his sister Alice (then Alice Hopkins) to whom he was very close. The postcard is postmarked ‘Durban, 8th May 1917’ and is thought to be of the transit camp in Durban where the R.H.A. stayed during their voyage to India. The text is headed ‘On active service’ and reads:
Dear sister Alice. Just a few lines to let you know that I am getting on all right and I hope you are the same. Tell Mrs Welch that I could not get her one of them because they had not got any more. Think this all from your loving brother Frank, or good bye till we meet again. Frank’
By 1918, he was recorded as Driver 182823, 79th Battery Royal Field Artillery, with his home address the same as his brother Sidney’s, 2 Andrew’s Cottages.
Frank married Alice Kate Head (a sibling of Albert Harold Head who served and survived) in the Pirton Wesleyan Chapel on July 31st 1920. They had two daughters, Ruth (b 1921, Ian Sagger’s mother) and Joyce (b 1935). Following his discharge Frank returned to agricultural labouring and worked for many years for the Weeden family at Rectory Farm until retiring aged 70. He remained active until dying suddenly just after Christmas 1971.
Acknowledgments
Text from the book ‘The Pride of Pirton’ by Jonty Wild, Tony French & Chris Ryan used with author's permission, Ian Saggers (grandson)
