Alan Murray Austin was the son of Archdeacon Austin who lived at Piccadilly House, Ock Street.

He was the first Abingdon School Old Boy to die in the war, on 15th October 1914, when his ship, HMS Hawke, was torpedoed by a U-boat in the North Sea and sank with the loss of 524 personnel.

Waste Court, on Bath Street, was acquired by Abingdon School in 1928 as a boarding house and also as a memorial to the Abingdon School alumni who had been lost in the war, as the plaque describes.

During the war, the house had been the home of the Clarke family who had themselves lost two sons. Link to Clarke page.

Since 2014, the house is now called Austin House in honour of the first Abingdonian to give his life in the Great War.