The First Christ Church man to be killed in the 1939-45 War, he was the nephew of Nigel Madan who had been killed in 1916 and whose name is on the WW1 Memorial. He was, also, the only officer of his regiment to be killed in 1939.
Nigel was the son of the Rev. Doctor Charles Fox Burney and his wife Ethel Wordsworth Madan. He was born in 1916 in Headington. His father had been appointed to the Chair of Oriel Professor of Hebrew in 1914.
His father died at the Acland Nursing Home, Oxford in 1925, leaving £7284-0-3.
He was educated at Summer Fields from 1924. In 1929, he went on to Marlborough with a Foundation Scholarship. Nigel graduated in 1937 with a 3rd in Lit. Hum.
He had been a member of the OTC and was commissioned into the Gloucestershire Regiment after going down. He was promoted to Lieutenant in January 1939.
He was killed on 17 December 1939.
He is buried at Beuvry Communal Cemetery, Pas de Calais Plot I. B. 5.
He left £1174-18-5. Probate was granted to his mother. His address was given as 39a St. Giles, Oxford.
With thanks to Summer Fields School, Oxford.