Source: Michael Doyle Their Name Liveth For Evermore: The Great War Roll of Honour for Leicestershire and Rutland.
He was the son of Bernard Ellis, a coal corn cake merchant, born 1860 in Elmfield, Leicestershire and his wife Isabel Clara Ellis (nee Evans, married in the third quarter of 1891 in Leicester), born 1863 in Belgrave, Leicestershire. Oliver Bernard was born in the 3rd quarter of 1898 in Leicestershire, his siblings were Christine Bernard, born in the 2nd quarter of 1894 and Colin Dara B., born in the 4th quarter of 1895, both his siblings were born in Leicestershire. In March 1901 the family home was at 10, Kirby Road, Leicester. In April 1911 Oliver was residing as a boarder at Sidcot school, Winscombe, Somerset. On the 31st January 1920 the Wyggeston Grammar School for Boys in Leicester published a Roll of Honour of former pupils, this records that Oliver attended the school between the years 1906 and 1908.
The following is reproduced from “Quakers and Railways, by E. H. Milligan. “A SCHOOLBOY EXPLOIT”:- In 1906 the North Eastern open new offices in York, a huge palace of business. In the ‘Miscellany’ column of the Manchester Guardian in March 1916 a strange episode there is recounted, but for security reasons with no mention of the place. The discovery of large letters painted in white on the roof of the building was reported by the astonished officials to the military authorities, and the opinion was a arrived at that the letters might be a signal to a raiding German aircraft. The enquiry led to the appearance of the headmaster of a most respectable school belonging to a body well known for their pacifist convictions. The schoolmaster explained to the astonished and incredulous commission the white lettering was the work of the daredevil pupil of his blameless establishment! Both the military and the railway powers refuse to believe that anyone could climb on aided the high roof of the building, but the lad who had confessed to the feet came forward and offered to do the climb again stop needless to say his suggestion was not accepted, but his story had to be believed, for the letters were his own initials, and he was able to produce witness a who had been present when he did it during the dark hours of the night. He had actually reached the roof by foott and hand hold on cornerstones not more than an inch in width, and had returned in safety by the same perilous path. The whole escapade was the outcome of a schoolboy ‘dare.’ The Bootham schoolboy was Oliver Ellis – ‘a fearless football player, a brilliant and daring gymnast’ wrote Arthur Rowntree, his headmaster. Ellis was a good naturalist (as witness is astute photographs of the hatching of a cuckoo’s egg, another illicit early morning excursion from school). He had great imaginative and literary gifts - his school essay purporting to be from a soldier who had been through Gallipoli is still terrifyingly compelling. His great-grandfather, Joseph Ellis, was brother to John, he of the Leicester and Swanington and the Midland Railway’s. He left Bootham in summer 1916 for the Royal Flying Corps. His exploits went ahead of him. On 21 April 1917 he wrote home. The (Friends Ambulance Unit) dentist I went to the other day said, “Let me see you’re the man who tried to whitewash the roof of some railway buildings in York, arn’t you?” A month later, on 20 May, Oliver Ellis was killed in action. His brother Colin lived on to be a historian of Leicester, his brother Richard became an eminent paediatrician and undertook Quaker relief work in Spain, his sister Christine devoted her life to the community in which she lived, to Quaker education and after the Second World War, to relief work in the Netherlands.
The circumstances of Olivers deaths are as follows; Flight Sub Lieutenant O. B. Ellis was flying a Sopwith N5488 of 1 (Naval) Squadron R.N. A.S. on 19 May 1917. He was observed to be in combat with an enemy aircraft at about 12,000 feet, east of Arleux. Ellis’s aircraft was seen to catch fire. Shortly afterwards Ellis was seen to enter clouds over Henin Lietard, and then a figure was seen to fall from the aircraft. The inescapable conclusion is that Ellis jumped to his death in preference to being burned to death. He would not have had a parachute. The enemy aircraft was possibly flown by Leutnant G. W. Groos, Jasta 4, who claimed a triplane shot down at 7:55pm over Droucourt. Ellis was posted as missing in action later assumed killed.