Lieutenant, Royal Artillery
Born: September 15th 1912
Died: January 25th 1942
Age at Death: 29
Killed, January 25th 1942
Ralph was born on 15 September 1912 in Bromley, Kent, to Sydney Stebbing and his wife Dora (née Rogers). At the College he played the flute in two Gilbert and Sullivan operettas: The Gondoliers and The Mikado. In 1938 he married Margaret Aston, the rather intimidatingly titled Instructress in the Women’s League of Health and Beauty, at Shirley Parish Church in Surrey. The wedding party was so fetching that the nuptials were commemorated with a headline and photo on the front page of the Sevenoaks Chronicle, depicting 11 other women from the League standing around them in uniform.
During the war Ralph served as a lieutenant in the 135th (Hertfordshire Yeomanry) Field Regiment of the Royal Artillery. The regiment remained in the United Kingdom until 1941, when it was deployed to defend Singapore. Stebbing was caught up in the successful Japanese invasion of Malaya, to the north of Singapore, and died on active service 12 days after arriving. He is buried in the Taiping War Cemetery in Malaya.