The Sandford obelisk

On Sandford weir, now enclosed by iron railings and a locked gate and ringed with danger signs, stands a memorial obelisk commemorating the deaths of young men, all from Christ Church, who have been drowned in the turbulent waters of the 'flasher' below the sluice-gates.

The obelisk was erected following the deaths in 1843 of Richard Phillimore who drowned in a vain attempt to save his friend William Gaisford, son of the Dean of Christ Church, Thomas Gaisford. The inscription on the memorial at Sandford is inaccessible, but an account of the tragedy is given in Latin on two memorial tablets in the north walk of the Cathedral cloisters:

(Nearby is buried Richard Phillimore, seventh son of Joseph Phillimore Regius Professor of Civil Law, a member of this House who, when vainly attempting to rescue his friend struggling in the treacherous waters of the river, was caught up in the whirlpools and perished on 23rd June 1843 before he had reached his twentieth birthday. We mourn him as a young man who stood out among those of his own age for his intellectual gifts, his character, his piety, and his breadth of learning. His friends and colleagues have erected this stone to his memory in the deepest grief.)

(To William Gaisford, a member of this House, who on 23rd June 1843 rashly entered the river at the Sandford weir when it was swollen by excessive rain and was sucked down into its depths. His age was 21 years 4 months 19 days. He was a much loved young man of unblemished character and his comrades and friends have erected this monument to him in mourning and deep grief.)

Two diamond-shaped stones mark their burial place in the north transept of the Cathedral.

The name of another Christ Church man, George Dasent, was added to the Sandford obelisk in 1872.

In 1921, the weir was to claim two more victims from Christ Church, one of them, Michael Llewelyn-Davies, the ward of the playwright J. M. Barrie. Barrie had written the story of Peter Pan for the five Llewelyn-Davies boys and when the sculptor, Sir George Frampton, wanted a model for his statue of Peter Pan, Barrie sent him a photograph of the six-year-old Michael dressed as Peter Michael therefore became immortalised in the well-known statue in Kensington Gardens, which was unveiled in 1912. His body was recovered from the Thames clasped to that of his friend Rupert Buxton, and it was the verdict of the coroner that Rupert had died while trying to save Michael. Barrie caused to be inscribed on the obelisk the words:

Michael Llewelyn Davies and Rupert Errol Victor Buxton, Commoners of Christ Church, were drowned here on 19th Hay 1921.

and a tablet with a quotation recalling the deaths of Saul and Jonathan was erected near the other two in Christ Church cloisters:

(n memory of Rupert Errol Victor Buxton aged 21 and of Michael Llewelyn Davies aged 20, Commoners of this House, who drowned in the river at Sandford on 18th Nay 1921, this stone was placed by their grieving friends.

They were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their deaths they were not divided .)

If the Sandford memorial belongs to the University, the City has its own tale of heroism recorded on an obelisk situated on the towpath at Boney's Bridge, a few hundred yards downstream from Osney Lock. The hero, an assistant in a chemist's shop in Cornmarket Street saved two boys while walking home on a summer evening, but perished himself. His sacrifice produced such a wave of public sympathy that within five months of his death an appeal by the Oxford YMCA had collected two thousand subscriptions at twopence a head to pay for a monument. The twelve-foot-high obelisk stands on a plinth which has the inscription:

In memory of Edgar George Wilson who after rescuing two boys from drowning lost his life on June 15 1889 aged 21 years.

Erected under the auspices of Oxford YMCA by public subscription. Unveiled November 7 by the Mayor of Oxford, Walter Gray Esq.

[Sir Walter Gray (1848-1918) was a remarkable example of a self-made man. Starting as a railway porter, he rose to be a stationmaster at the age of twenty-two, when he was brought to the notice of the governing body of recently-built Keble College, Oxford, who were looking for a Steward. Gray took the job at Keble where he remained from 1870 until 1883, and then gained control of the Oxford Building and Investment Company. With a keen nose for a business deal, he rose to be a prominent property developer at a time when North Oxford was being built. A staunch Conservative, he entered local politics in 1881, became a JP in 1886, was four times Mayor of Oxford, and received a knighthood in 1902. He is buried in Wolvercote Cemetery (Plot H1,173) and his portrait is to be seen in the Assembly Room at the Town Hall. Buried in the same grave in Wolvercote Cemetery is his son, Frank (1880-1935), a solicitor who liked to regard himself as a people's champion and who briefly represented Oxford in Parliament before being unseated as the result of irregularity in his election expenses. The colourful life of both father and son is described in Charles Fenby's The other Oxford. The life and times of Frank Gray and his father (1970), a mine of information and anecdote on the outrageous behaviour of domineering public figures, and an exposure of jobbery, jiggery-pokery and corruption in the affairs of the City of Oxford.]

Another memorial paid for by public subscription is to be found on the wall opposite the car-park near the Port Meadow bathing-place in Godstow Road, Wolvercote. Here, a red-granite frame surrounds a tablet of black marble on which is a representation of a monoplane and an inscription:

In deep respect for the memory of Lieut C.A. Bettington and Second-Lieut E. Hotchkiss of the Royal Flying Corps, who met their deaths in the wreck of a monoplane 100 yards north of this spot on September 10 1912.