Harry Ronald Hiscock, known as Ron, was born in Wandsworth in London on Thursday, 2nd August 1894, the oldest child of Harry Philip Hiscock and Florence Charlotte Walters. Harry and Florence had five other children who were; Victor, Miriam, Hubert, Basil and Alice. Two of Ron’s brothers, Victor and Hubert also fought in the Great War and both survived the conflict.

Ron’s father Harry had been a ‘Commercial Clerk’ before he married Florence Walters in Croydon in 1893, after which the newly-weds moved to Wandsworth where Harry set up as a ‘Cycle Maker’. Three years after Ron was born, his family moved to Aylesbury where his father opened a bicycle shop and where his sister Miriam and brother Hubert were born.

Finally, in around 1900 the Hiscock family arrived in Hemel Hempstead where they took up residence in ‘Clifton Villas’ on Bridge Street, and Harry set up his cycle shop at 82 Marlowes. The shop eventually expanded to number 80 next door and traded until Harry’s death in 1926 selling not only bicycles but rather curiously, ‘Gramophones’.

Ron and his younger brother Victor started school on 26th May 1902 when they entered Boxmoor JMI school which recorded that both boys had been privately educated before their arrival. The brothers did not stay long at Boxmoor school and when there had consistently irregular attendance. The school log recorded that the Attendance Officer often visited the school because of their absence. Francis St. John Badcock, the head teacher, noted his own observations in the log revealing that he felt they were evading the ‘Act’ (the Education Act which set out compulsory attendance and the school leaving age).

Ron and Victor left Boxmoor JMI in 1904 to go to a ‘Private’ school, and by 1911 they were both employed as ‘Assistants’ by their father in his shop on the Marlowes. The family lived at ‘Gladstone Villas’ on Crescent Road not far from Midland Station, and on the outbreak of war twenty-year-old Ron went from there to enlist.

The report of his death in the Hemel Gazette stated that he made several attempts to join the Colours but was rejected each time, presumably because of his health or fitness. His efforts continued for two more years before Ron successfully passed all the tests to become an Air Mechanic, and in early February 1917 he joined the Royal Flying Corps.

Sadly, his service was short-lived when in mid-February he caught a chill which turned to influenza and resulted in his admission to hospital. He was there for two weeks until he succumbed to the illness, only five weeks after his entry into the Army.

Ron died on Saturday, 3rd March 1917.

His body was brought home to Hemel Hempstead and he was given a full military funeral and buried in Heath Lane Cemetery on Friday, 16th March 1917. A report of Ron’s funeral was published in the Hemel Gazette on the following day. Ron's headstone was not erected by the CWGC immediately and certainly after 1919 as it displays the crest of the Royal Airforce (RAF) and not the RFC. This was a conscious decision by the CWGC to develop the identity of the RAF which had been formed on 1st April 1918.

Ron is Remembered with Honour in Hemel Hempstead (Heath Lane) Cemetery, Hertfordshire, United Kingdom where he is interred in Grave W.21. The inscription on his headstone, requested by his mother Florence, reads: “ONLY "GOOD NIGHT" BELOVED NOT FAREWELL”.

He was 22 years old when he died.

Ron was entitled to the British War Medal and the Allied Victory Medal.