Ralph Shields WW2
Born in County Durham, but later living in Newbiggin-by-the-Sea in Northumberland, Ralph Shields joined Exeter City from Huddersfield Town in December 1920 in part-exchange for William Wright. Making twenty first-team appearances during a six-month stint with the Grecians, he left to join Brentford in time for the 1921/22 season.
Having worked as a miner in Durham (where he was still recorded in the 1911 census), he appears to have moved to Northumberland - where he turned out for Newbiggin Athletic and Choppington Alliance - by the time he signed for Newcastle United for a reported £40 fee in October 1913. Now aged twenty-two, his stint with the Magpies was short-lived and he was soon on the move to Huddersfield Town ahead of the outbreak of the Great War in 1914. As football continued for another year, Ralph finished as the Yorkshire club's leading scorer during 1914/15 before serving as a bombardier in the Royal Field Artillery.
Returning to Huddersfield after the war, he featured in around a third of the games when the club won promotion in 1920 at which time he also married Eva Jane Storey of Newbiggin-by-the-Sea. With his club now in Division One, his opportunities in Yorkshire became increasingly limited and the twenty-nine-year-old Ralph signed for Exeter City in December 1920. Although his time at St James' Park was short-lived - 19 league appearances, four goals during the second-half of the 1920/21 season - he was was nonetheless recorded in the June 1921 census as a professional footballer with Exeter City when living at Sandridge a few yards from the harbour at Newbiggin.
But Ralph did not return to Devon for the new season and, with his wife and newly-born daughter, moved to West London to play for Brentford where another child was born in 1922. Once again his stay was short although he was to remain in the South East for several more years whilst playing non-league football in Kent for Sittingbourne. By 1925 a third child had been born in Northumberland and Ralph spent a season or two with Blyth Spartans - just along the coast from Newbiggin - before the family emigrated to Concord, New South Wales in 1927. Now aged thirty-six, there is no record that he continued to play football as the newcomers settled into life in the Sydney suburbs.
Thirteen years later, Ralph made the fateful decision to register for military service in June 1940. Aged forty-eight, he falsified his age by nine years in order to qualify for the Australian Army Service and soon saw service in Malaya. Captured by the Japanese army, he was interned in the Sandakan Prisoner of War Camp in North Borneo where he died of malnutrition and beriberi on 21 November 1944.
Ralph Shields is buried at the Labuan War Cemetery in Malaysia and is also remembered in the Exeter City memorial garden.
For more about his playing career see his entry in the A to Z of first-team players section of this archive.
[Compiled with the kind assistance of the Newbiggin-by-the-Sea Genealogy Project].
Having worked as a miner in Durham (where he was still recorded in the 1911 census), he appears to have moved to Northumberland - where he turned out for Newbiggin Athletic and Choppington Alliance - by the time he signed for Newcastle United for a reported £40 fee in October 1913. Now aged twenty-two, his stint with the Magpies was short-lived and he was soon on the move to Huddersfield Town ahead of the outbreak of the Great War in 1914. As football continued for another year, Ralph finished as the Yorkshire club's leading scorer during 1914/15 before serving as a bombardier in the Royal Field Artillery.
Returning to Huddersfield after the war, he featured in around a third of the games when the club won promotion in 1920 at which time he also married Eva Jane Storey of Newbiggin-by-the-Sea. With his club now in Division One, his opportunities in Yorkshire became increasingly limited and the twenty-nine-year-old Ralph signed for Exeter City in December 1920. Although his time at St James' Park was short-lived - 19 league appearances, four goals during the second-half of the 1920/21 season - he was was nonetheless recorded in the June 1921 census as a professional footballer with Exeter City when living at Sandridge a few yards from the harbour at Newbiggin.
But Ralph did not return to Devon for the new season and, with his wife and newly-born daughter, moved to West London to play for Brentford where another child was born in 1922. Once again his stay was short although he was to remain in the South East for several more years whilst playing non-league football in Kent for Sittingbourne. By 1925 a third child had been born in Northumberland and Ralph spent a season or two with Blyth Spartans - just along the coast from Newbiggin - before the family emigrated to Concord, New South Wales in 1927. Now aged thirty-six, there is no record that he continued to play football as the newcomers settled into life in the Sydney suburbs.
Thirteen years later, Ralph made the fateful decision to register for military service in June 1940. Aged forty-eight, he falsified his age by nine years in order to qualify for the Australian Army Service and soon saw service in Malaya. Captured by the Japanese army, he was interned in the Sandakan Prisoner of War Camp in North Borneo where he died of malnutrition and beriberi on 21 November 1944.
Ralph Shields is buried at the Labuan War Cemetery in Malaysia and is also remembered in the Exeter City memorial garden.
For more about his playing career see his entry in the A to Z of first-team players section of this archive.
[Compiled with the kind assistance of the Newbiggin-by-the-Sea Genealogy Project].
Collection
Files
Comments