Lt Colonel John Dolphin CBE

Whilst carrying out research for a new local history project, stories from Christleton Parish during WWII, I came across an obituary for Lt. Col. John Dolphin CBE who lived at “Stoneydale” in Christleton at some stage of his early life. Although there are reports of him being born in Christleton, I think it would almost certainly have been at Curzon Park where his parents Harold Evelyn and Dorothy Rachel Dolphin were living in 1905. They didn’t move to Christleton until 1923. He had a brother, Harold Maximillian Burton Dolphin (Max), who served as a Lieutenant in the 2/56 Punjabi Rifles in the Indian Army and who died on active service in Persia. He is commemorated on the Delhi Memorial Gate in India, and by a plaque at St Mary’s Church in Handbridge.

I first learned about John through a story by his nephew Anthony Barrington Brown, who described him in an article in the Parish Magazine in 2011.
“My mother’s brother John was a frequent visitor, very dashing always with the latest sports car. After a three wheel Morgan he advanced to an SS Jaguar, then in the war he had successively two armour plated Railtons, in which among other things, he distributed Tommy-guns to the commanders elect of the underground resistance to the expected German Invaders.”

So who was John Dolphin, and what did he do to become Lt Colonel John Dolphin CBE?

After growing up in Chester he attended Marlborough College in Wiltshire, and went on to Loughborough Engineering College as a student apprentice. When he graduated in 1926, he joined the Hydraulic Engineering Company in Chester where he worked for a short time. He was then appointed as an Inspector for Selection Trust Ltd, and shortly afterwards as a manager at Austin Hoy & Co and then Engineer at Sheepbridge Coal & Iron Co, before setting up his own business, John Dolphin Ltd Consultants.

During this time he was commissioned as a 2nd Lt. 4/5th Battalion The Cheshire Regt, (TA) before transferring to the TA Reserve of Officers in 1931. He was mobilised on 24th August 1939, and had a meteoric rise as Captain, Major and temporary Lieutenant Colonel by 1942. His military rank however was a cover for his membership of the Secret Intelligence Services (SOE) where he was part of the “sabotage service”. At this time he was involved in plans to create a resistance organisation in the UK, to thwart the German enemy if they broke through our defences and landed in the UK. He was one of a small team developing specialist military inventions. In 1943 he became Commanding Officer of the Inter-services Research Station at Welwyn in Hertfordshire. Shortly afterwards he transferred to the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, where he served before retiring, with the honorary rank of Lieutenant Colonel in November 1960.

Amongst the specialist equipment that was developed whilst he was at the SOE, were the Welman midget submarine and the Welman Parachutists motorcycle. On leaving the Army he founded a number of companies including the Corgi Motorcycle Company, and set up Dolphin Industrial Developments which he ran until 1950. He was then appointed Chief Engineer at the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment, and later Engineer in Chief at the UK Atomic Research Group. In 1959 he became Joint Managing Director of Lansing Bagnall Ltd, J E Shay Ltd, and Director of TI Group Services, where he successfully secured patents for a number of inventions, including sheet piling revetments, improvements to fork lift trucks, and the forerunner of the modern mobility scooter.

He was appointed Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1956 Queen’s Birthday Honours. He died 2 May 1973 aged 67 in Oxfordshire. What an amazing man who once lived in our village, one of many from a secret generation whose story can now be told.