JOHN OSCAR LAYBOURNE 

John Oscar LAYBOURNE
Rank: Second Lieutenant
Service Number:N/A.
Regiment: 1/7th Bn Cheshire Regiment
Killed In Action Monday 26th March 1917
Age 25
FromLiverpool.
County Memorial Chester
Commemorated\Buried Gaza War Cemetery
Grave\Panel Ref: XXVIII.A.2.
CountryIsrael

John Oscar's Story.

The only son of John Henry Laybourne (1866-1937) and Ada Sophia Laybourne (1865-1935), John Oscar Laybourne was born in Liverpool, UK on June 13, 1891. John Oscar Laybourne attended The King’s School, Chester from 1899 to 1908. In 1906 he was awarded the City of Chester Challenge cup for rowing. In 1908 he began working for Parr’s Bank. Early in the First World War, he left his job at the bank’s Liverpool Market branch to go on to military service in the Liverpool Scottish. In 1915, he was acting as an interpreter between the British and French lines in France when he was targeted by a German sniper. The sniper’s bullet struck the tree behind which he was sheltering and ricocheted into his face, causing a serious injury to his ear. He was invalided home, and later underwent a radical mastoidectomy. He returned to active service, and was commissioned into the 1st/7th Bn, Cheshire Regiment. He was deployed to Palestine where a battle was raging against the Ottoman Turks. Second Lieutenant John Oscar Laybourne was killed in action in Palestine on 26 March 1917 and was buried in Gaza Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery. His parents received a First World War memorial plaque and a letter signed by King George V.

There is a stained glass window in Chester Cathedral dedicated to John Oscar Laybourne which reads: “A noble life freely sacrificed for the future welfare of humanity.”

 

About his family:

Originally a detective in Liverpool, John Oscar’s father, John Henry Laybourne, became Chief Constable and then Mayor of Chester. John Oscar Laybourne had one sister, Florence Ada Laybourne who married and emigrated to Canada in the 1920s, had five children and numerous descendants who all reside in Canada today.



The Cheshire Roll of Honour would like to thank Diana Lake for this information on John.