John had been aboard ships since leaving school, and had lived in Filey with his wife, Mary Elizabeth Oxtoby (nee Jenkinson) at 11, Mitford Street for just a couple of years.  Mary was another local girl who had married someone from outside the town, John’s parents, Annie and John Oxtoby still living in Hull.  He served on the S.S. Cambric as a Mercantile Marine, another Naval service that consisted of mainly commercial vessels but had been aboard three other vessels since 1914 which had been sunk by mines or torpedoes whilst at sea.  He must have been either very lucky, or very unlucky depending which way you look at it!  However, on the last day of October 1917 the Cambric failed to report back to its base in the Mediterranean after a mission, and another vessel reported seeing a ship being torpedoed near the Cambric’s last known location.  These two facts combined paint a stark picture of the last moments of Oxtoby’s life, although because no positive identification could be given to the ship in distress, Oxtoby’s family were told he was Missing In Action, and not informed of these facts until the end of the war.  He is commemorated on the Tower Hill Memorial in London