One of the older members of the Granville Rechabites club to enlist, Corporal Roy Manton Oakes played in the halves for the club as early as 1909.
Born on 5 January,1893 the second of three and enlisting in 1916, Corporal Oakes was one of a number of players from Rechabites who were clerks prior to the war, he was used as a driver for the 5th Divisional Ammunition Column. Roy survived WWI, returning home he married Elizabeth Powe some 12 years his senior in 1922 and moved away from Granville to the northern harbourside suburb of Hunters Hill where they lived until Roy’s death in 1963.
The Oakes family story is littered with tragedy, Roy’s older brother drowned in Sydney Harbour in 1917, and Roy’s own son Leslie, named for his grandfather, was killed in a training accident in Canada with the RAAF in 1943. Roy went to war having been a clerk and listed clerk as his occupation for the rest of his working life. He is one of the 50 Rechabites players to appear on the Honour Board.