Notes
Norman Travers Hankin was born at Whitley Bay in Northumberland on 28 April 1910, the younger son of Ethel (née Thompson) and Seymer Hankin, company secretary to an assurance company. He was educated at Bedford Modern School and then at St Paul’s School from 1923 to 1929 where he played water polo and won the Whittaker Cup for swimming. He later rowed for the 2nd Rowing Eight and served in the Officer Training Corps.
Norman Hankin entered Worcester College on 11 October 1929, where he was a member of the College Boat Club and rowed in several crews, including the 1st Torpid who went Head of the River in 1930. He achieved 2nd class honours in Jurisprudence in 1932. In February 1932 he won a scholarship to the Inner Temple and was called to the bar in 1934. He was also employed as a director of Messrs. R. Greg & Co Cotton Spinners of Stockport.
Norman Hankin married Rachel Spedding on 16 July 1938 in Chelsea. Following the outbreak of war, he attended an Officer Training Unit before being commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Cheshire Regiment on 18 May 1940. Hankin was posted to the Middle East Supply Centres at Baghdad and at Tripoli, and was on the “Q” Staff in Cairo under Lieutenant Colonel R. H. Quinnell, Director of Civilian Transport for the Middle East. He was mentioned in despatches for “distinguished service in Persia-Iraq”, announced by the War Office on 3 August 1943.
It was while stationed in Cairo that Lieutenant Colonel Norman Hankin was killed in an accident on a houseboat on 15 October 1944, aged 34.
Norman Hankin is buried at Heliopolis War Cemetery in Egypt, and is commemorated on the war memorials at St Peter’s Church, Prestbury, Cheshire; St Paul’s School; and Worcester College, Oxford.