John Alwyn Oughtred was born in 1894. He was educated at Hymers College, Hull, and Newton College, Newton Abbot. He married Phyllis Bentham (died 1981), 1919, with whom he had one son.

He worked in the London Joint Stock Bank Ltd, Hull. He was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the East Yorkshire Regiment, 1915. He fought on the Western Front, 1916-18, and was awarded the Military Cross, 1917. He was promoted Lieutenant, 1916, and Captain, 1917.

After the war, he joined the Bentham family business, William Jackson and Son Ltd, a firm of Hull food manufacturers and retailers, becoming managing director in 1942. He died in 1958.