Charles John Minter

1897 - 1991  (93 years)

• Name	Charles John Minter
  Birth	23 Jul 1897	Ringwould, Kent   [1]
  Gender	Male
  _UID	E26C15F32ADE4ECBAB80705DCB709AB8FC53
  Death	14 Jun 1991	The Mount Nursing Home, Tadcaster, Yorkshire   [1, 2, 3]
  Notes	1921 census: Charles John MINTER (23y 11m, single, born Kingsdown, Kent, leading stoker in the Royal Navy) was one of three visitors living at 32 Woodside Road, Denny Bottom, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, home of John Frank BUGDEN, his wife and son. 1939 Register: at 1 Trentholme Drive, York C.B., Yorkshire (West Riding) Minter, Charles J born 23 Jul 1897, married, city engineer, York; civil defence services Minter, Edith F born 21 Feb 1896, married, unpaid domestic duties; WVS evacuatio-- Listed in London Gazette 9 Jan 1946: Charles John MINTER, Esq., City Engineer and lately Head of Civil Defence Rescue Service, York. Death was announced in The Times (London, England), Monday, June 17, 1991; pg. 17; Issue 64047: on June 14th, in a nursing home in York, Charles James (sic) Minter OBE, aged 93 years. City Engineer and Planning Officer, York 1935 - 1962. The Imperial War Museum has a collection of the Private Papers of C J Minter OBE which almost certainly relate to Charles John Minter. The relevant web page (http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1030002977) describes the collection as follows: Ms memoirs (two versions, 185 and 44pp), first written in the late 1920s, covering his decision, at the age of 17, to enlist in the Royal Navy in early 1915, his training as a stoker at the RN Barracks Chatham (January - June 1915), his service in the battleship HMS HIBERNIA (June 1915 - March 1918) mainly on patrol duties in Home waters but at the Dardanelles for the conclusion of the Gallipoli campaign (November 1915 - January 1916); in the destroyer HMS WARWICK in the Dover Patrol (March - June 1918) including participation in the raids on Zeebrugge and then Ostend, when WARWICK was damaged by a mine; in the icebreaker HMS ALEXANDER (September 1918 - June 1919) in Arctic waters during the North Russian campaign as an engineer writer in the Mediterranean Fleet battleship HMS EMPEROR OF INDIA (March - November 1920) including service in the Black Sea during the final stages of the Allied intervention in South Russia and in Turkish waters; his appointment to the Mechanical Training Establishment at Chatham and qualification as an acting Mechanician (1921 - 1922); and his service in this rank in the cruiser HMS HAWKINS, the flagship on the China station, from April 1923 until he was invalided out of the Royal Navy the following year; together with an ms account (20pp) of his service in HMS WARWICK during the Zeebrugge and Ostend raids and ms diaries (59 and 71pp respectively) that he kept throughout his time in ALEXANDER and EMPEROR OF INDIA and a photocopy of his official employment record in the Royal Navy. May 2023: I recived an email from Yanqi Huang: Hope you are doing all well. I am working on a research project on the York City Engineer's Office and Architect's Department, supported by the University of York Department of History of Art and York Civic Trust. This project will contribute to the understanding of the C20 built environment of York and the city's municipal history as a whole. Charles John Minter was a key figure in the operation of these two departments, and I am seeking to have an interview with his children if possible. I would appreciate any information you can provide, looking foward to hearing from you. Thank you very much, Yanqi I replied saying that as far as I know, Charles John Minter had no children.
  Person ID	I2026	Ickham, Kent
  Last Modified	11 Apr 2025

  
  

  Father	Charles Minter,   b. 23 Jul 1866, Sittingbourne, Kent d. Mar 1936, Thanet RD (Age 69 years)
  Mother	Frances JORDAN,   b. 13 Jul 1872, Eastry, Kent d. Dec 1953, York RD (Age 81 years)
  Marriage	Dec 1896	Eastry, Kent   [1]
  Family ID	F472	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Edith Frances JORDAN,   b. 21 Feb 1896, Marylebone RD d. 16 Dec 1969, York (Age 73 years)
  Marriage	Jun 1922	Cuckfield, Sussex   [1]
  Family ID	F473	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	8 Sep 2009

  
  

• Event Map

  Birth - 23 Jul 1897 - Ringwould, Kent Marriage - Jun 1922 - Cuckfield, Sussex  = Link to Google Earth

  
  

• Photos

  Charles John Minter 1897 - 1991 A picture which appeared in The Press (York) on 24 July 2019. It was accompanied by the following text: HERE'S a man wearing the look of pride you get from a job well done. The date is October 1963, and the man is Mr CJ Minter, the former York city engineer. And the bridge he's looking at? Clifton Bridge, of course - which Mr Minter and his team from the city engineers' department helped to build. There had been talk of building a bridge here at Clifton, on the site of an old ferry crossing, for at least 50 years - plans had been put before the council in 1913. They came to nothing. In 1932, the plans were revived, as part of a scheme for an outer ring road, but again nothing happened. By 1955, some preliminary work actually began on a scheme for a bridge at Clifton. But these plans too fizzled out. In 1961, however, a young woman called Katharine Worsley married the Duke of Kent in York's own version of a Royal Wedding at York Minster. In order to handle the extra traffic anticipated, the army put up a temporary bridge across the river at Clifton. That temporary bridge was so successful that it finally paved the way for a permanent bridge to be built. The bridge took two years to complete, and cost £230,000 to build: which prompted The Yorkshire Evening Press of October 25, 1963, to make a few snarky comments. “The cost now: £230,000,” the newspaper reported. “The cost if it had been built 50 years ago: about £35,000.” Still, today even that £230,000 seems like good value. Mr Minter had good reason for his pride. It is hard to imagine York without the bridge now... Stephen Lewis

  
  

• Sources

  [S3] BMD index. [S198] The Times Digital Archive, September 2012, The Times (London, England), Monday, June 17, 1991; pg. 17; Issue 64047. (Reliability: 3). [S236] https://probatesearch.service.gov.uk, October 2015.