Reid, Gordon Wemyss (Gordon)
Flight Sergeant
No. 590717, Royal Air Force
Died as the result of an accident on Wednesday 14 January 1942 (aged 25)
Buried:
Bushey (St. James) Churchyard, Hertfordshire, England (Section A Grave 23)
Commemorated:
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Sullivan Upper School Holywood
BIOGRAPHY
Gordon Wemyss Reid was born on 11 July 1916 and his birth was registered in Birkenhead, Cheshire. He was a son of Thomas Wemyss Reid and Margery Ann Reid (nee Robinson). Gordon’s father, Thomas Wemyss Reid (one of eight children) was born on 22 November 1886 and his birth was registered in Altrincham, Cheshire. Thomas Reid was a son of Alexander Goran Reid and Mary Jane Reid, both of whom were born in England. It is recorded in the 1911 Census that Alexander Goran Reid was working as a railway general manager in Dublin and that Thomas was a student in Dublin.
Thomas Wemyss Reid and his family moved from Birkenhead to Northern Ireland, and they lived at 3 Moffett’s Terrace, Demesne Road, Holywood, Co. Down. Gordon Reid attended Belmont Public Elementary School and then Sullivan Upper School, Holywood from 1929 until 1932.
When he left school, Gordon Reid joined the Royal Air Force and his marriage to Dorothy Hilda Lack was registered in the third quarter of 1940 in Watford, Hertfordshire. Dorothy Reid lived in Bushey Heath, Hertfordshire.
Flight Sergeant Gordon Wemyss Reid (No. 590717) was 25 when he was died on 14 January 1942. According to school records he was accidentally killed in Scotland. According to a report in the Newark Advertiser newspaper he died at Newark General Hospital, Nottinghamshire, the day after a car he was driving crashed at Kneesall, Nottinghamshire. Four airmen were injured when their vehicle left the road and hit a telegraph post. Warrant Officer Leonard Kenney (No. 509585) died in Newark General Hospital from his injuries on 18 January 1942 (his 35th birthday) and was buried in Newark-upon-Trent Cemetery (Section G, Grave 305). Leonard was a son of Lily Kenney of Port Elizabeth, Cape Province, South Africa, and there is an inscription on his CWGC headstone:
TO A BEAUTIFUL LIFE
CAME A SUDDEN END.
I WHO LOVED HIM
WILL NEVER FORGET.
Flight Sergeant Gordon Wemyss Reid (No. 590717) was buried in Bushey (St. James) Churchyard, Hertfordshire, England and there is an inscription on his CWGC headstone:
IN TREASURED MEMORY
OF A VERY DEAR
HUSBAND AND FATHER
Flight Sergeant Gordon Wemyss Reid (No. 590717) is commemorated in Sullivan Upper School, Holywood.
His father’s death was registered in the second quarter of 1971 in Uckfield, Sussex.