1956
(498)
(Solicitor).
Born in Leicester on the 18th November 1892 and educated at Stoneygate School, Leicester and Oundle School, Northants.
He was admitted a Solicitor in 1916 and was commissioned in the 4th Battalion, The Leicestershire Regiment the same year. He served in France and Belgium from October that year to May 1918, when he was taken prisoner of war and remained in Germany until December 1918. He was awarded the Military Cross in May 1918.
Alderman Halkyard took the Degree of Batchelor of Laws of the University of London in 1919.
In 1921 Alderman Halkyard rejoined the Territorial Army on its revival and commanded the 4th Battalion, The Leicestershire Regiment from 1930 to 1936. He was promoted Brevet Colonel in 1934 and was awarded the Territorial Decoration in 1936 and a Bar to it in 1951. From 1925~1957 Alderman Halkyard was a member of the Leicestershire and Rutland Territorial Forces Association and was Chairman of that Association for nine years (1948~1957).
In the Second World War Alderman Halkyard was recalled from the Territorial Army Reserve of Officers to command a Holding Battalion in Devonshire from February to June 1940, afterwards to form and command a Pioneer Training Centre near Birmingham from June to September 1940, and finally as a Local Defence Commander attached to the R.A.F. Station, St. Athan, Glamorgan, from October 1940 to October 1941, when he was demobilised.
Alderman Halkyard became a member of the Board of Governors of the Leicester Royal Infirmary in 1936 and subsequently served as Deputy Chairman and Treasurer, and Chairman of the Finance Committee, until the passing of the National Health Service Act 1946, under which Act the Infirmary was nationalised. He then became a member of Leicester No. 1 Hospital Management Committee and was Deputy Chairman of that Committee and Chairman of its Finance Committee till he retired from it in March 1951. He was reappointed to that Management Committee as its Chairman in 1957.
Alderman Halkyard was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant for Leicestershire in 1942.
He was elected to the City Council as representative for the Knighton Ward in 1938 and has been a member of many Committees, notably the Estates and Burial Grounds Committee and the Parliamentary and General Purposes Committee, of both of which he was Chairman for a number of years, the Finance Committee and the Parks Committee.
He was Chairman of the Conservative Group of the City Council from 1944 to 1947 and was elevated to the Aldermanic Bench in 1949. He served as High Bailiff of the City 1954~55, during the Lord Mayoralty of Alderman C. H. Harris.
Alderman Halkyard was appointed a Companion of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath in 1956 for public services.
A notable feature of his year of Office was the success of the Appeal he launched locally in support of the National Hungarian and Central European Refugee Fund set up by the Lord Mayor of London to assist those who fled from Hungary after the October and November rising in that Country. This local appeal realised £22,910 6s. 7d.
Alderman Halkyard was married in 1922 to Constance Mary West Walton, daughter of the late Mr. Edmund Walton, F.S.I., P.A.I., of Chilwell Manor, Notts and has three sons and one daughter.
