Alan Frank Gibson, 30 May 1923 - 27 March 1988

Abstract

Alan Gibson was born in Calcutta on 30 May 1923. He was the only child of Heseltine Gibson, a metallurgist, and Ruby Margaret, née Wilson, who had been a dispenser before marriage. His more distant ancestors were mainly farmers from the North Riding of Yorkshire. Heseltine Gibson graduated from Birmingham University in 1914 with first class honours. He was awarded the Military Cross for his service in World War I. At the end of the War, in 1918, he went to India to work for the heavy engineering firm of Martin-Burn and Co. in the town of Howrah, across the Hooghly River from Calcutta. The firm made railway rolling stock, boilers, and the like, and it was later involved in the building of the massive Howrah bridge. Heseltine Gibson rose to become General Manager and he remained in India after the partition of 1947, with its attendant inter-racial strife, during which he was locked in his office while the firm’s furnaces were used as human incinerators.