Sergeant Pilot, RAF
Born: July 22nd 1922
Died: June 26th 1941
Age at Death: 18
Killed, June 26th 1941
House Prefect 1939
1st 11 1938-1940
3rd 15 1938-1940
The son of Lieutenant-Colonel William Anthony Colbourne of the Indian Army and his wife Beatrice, Hugh Colbourne was born on 22 July 1922 in South Africa, but moved to England at the age of nine. After Brighton College, where he was a Prefect and member of the 1st XI, he enlisted as a pilot in the RAF, and was based at the RAF training station at Kinloss aerodrome, Scotland.
He died on 26 June 1941 in unknown circumstances, though we can surmise that his death occurred almost certainly during the course of training. He is buried at Kinloss Abbey. At a month shy of his 19th birthday, Colbourne was the youngest Old Brightonian in the armed services to die during the war, though he was three years older than Frank Stuttaford, a civilian and current pupil who was killed during a bombing raid in September 1940.
To mark Remembrance in 2023, a Brighton College parent visited the Kinloss Abbey Burial ground, and found Hugh’s grave.
