Pilot Officer, RAFVR
Born: November 19th 1909
Died: December 17th 1940
Age at Death: 31
Killed, December 17th 1940
Harold Hobday was born in Clapton, London, in 1909, to William Hobday, an architect, and his wife Annie (née Paine). At the College he appeared in two Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, long the staples of public school dramatic performances: “The Sorcerer” (as one of the “women and girls of the village” according to the school magazine) and in “Ruddigore” as Mad Margaret. Archibald Brankston, killed a month after Harold, served backstage in the same production.
Before the war he worked as a printer and married Eleanor Thorp. Their daughter, Virginia, was born in April 1940 while Harold was away on active service with 216 Squadron, flying the Bristol Bombay Mark I bomber.
On 17 December 1940 Hobday and his crew took off from the Heliopolis Cairo airfield to train at the Suez Bombing Range. The aircraft was making a practice run over the range when it stalled and dived into the ground, killing the entire crew.
He is buried in Cairo War Memorial Cemetery.