Acknowledgements: Tony Harding
Obituary: Vyvyian Oswald Davis
Vyvyan Oswald Davis, Lieutenant, R.E., died at Newcastle on the 6th November, 1918, from pneumonia following influenza. He was 33 years of age, and was educated at St. Augustine’s College, Ramsgate, and later at Wimbledon College. He won the Mitchell Scholarship at the Central Technical College, South Kensington, and on conclusion of his three years’ course there passed out second on the list of electrical engineers. He entered the works of Messrs. C.A. Parsons & Co., Ltd. Newcastle-on-Tyne, with whom he remained five years, and after three years in Germany with the Allgemeine Elektricitats Gesellschaft, returned to England to take up an appointment with the British Thomson-Houston Co. Ltd., Rugby, who had the very highest opinion of him and his abilities.
About a year before the War broke out he was appointed manager of their Newcastle branch, and in August, 1914, on the nomination of the Institution of Civil Engineers, obtained a commission in the Royal Engineers. After the usual period of training he went to France where he was for a whole year actively engaged at the front. He was then invalided home and rejected for further active service. Military duties at Woolwich and Aldershot were given to him for about a year when he was seconded to his original position at Newcastle for work of national importance. He was a Member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, an Associate Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, and an Associate of the City and Guilds Institute.
Mr. Davis was elected a Member of the Institution in April, 1914.
Note: Lt Davis does not appear on the Institution’s Roll of Members on Military Service, nor in Soldiers Died or on the CWGC site. He is however recorded in De Ruvigny’s Roll of Honour.
The name of Vyvian Oswald David does not appear on a local North-East War Memorial.
