Sergeant Observer, RAF
Born: September 6th 1920
Died: July 27th 1943
Age at Death: 22
Killed on active service, July 27th 1943
House Prefect 1937
1st 11 1935-1937
1st 15 1936-1937
Ian was born on 6 September 1920 in Upton-upon-Severn, Worcestershire, to Gordon Wallace-Cox and his wife Alice (née Shields). He was at Brighton College from 1935 to 1937, playing in the 1st XI and the 1st XV, and became Prefect in his last year.
During the war he flew in the Armstrong Whitworth Whitley bomber, acting as bomb aimer and navigator. On 27 July 1943 he was in an aircraft that took off from Darley Moor Airfield in Derbyshire just after midnight. The aircraft was barely airborne when a flame trap on the port engine failed, causing the engine to catch fire. The aircraft quickly lost what little height it had and crashed in a field less than half a mile from the end of the runway, killing the whole crew. Wallace-Cox is buried in nearby Ashbourne Cemetery, but the natural world has also created its own memorial: a depression in the grass, created by the plane’s impact, can still be seen in the field. He left a widow, Margery.