Killed in action aged 20
Buried Bienvillers Military Cemetery, near Arras. Plot VI C 1
John Vibart was born in Wakefield in 1897 to William Vibart Dixon, a solicitor in Wakefield, Deputy Chief Clerk of the West Riding of the Yorkshire County Council, and his wife Muriel (nee Langhorne) of Westfield House, Thorner, Leeds.
John went to Summer Fields in January 1910, and on to Shrewsbury in the autumn of that year. At Shrewsbury, he was in School House and played cricket for the 2nd XI. He won the Bentley Elocution Prize for three years in succession.
After leaving Shrewsbury in 1915 he did not take up his place at Christ Church, but instead joined 3rd North Midland Brigade of the Royal Field Artillery and was involved with ammunition column work.
An ammunition column consisted of military vehicles carrying artillery and small arms ammunition for the combatant unit to which the column belonged. Thus the ammunition columns of a division, forming part of the brigades of field artillery, carried reserve ammunition for the guns, the machine guns of the infantry and the rifles of all arms. Generally speaking, the ammunition column of each of the artillery brigades furnished spare ammunition for its own batteries and for one of the brigades of infantry. (Wikipedia)
He then transferred to 2nd Brigade, to which he was gazetted on 4 September 1916, he fought in France and was killed in action at Gommecourt in March 1917.
John’s name is recorded on the Leeds University Roll of Honour.