Jabez Elvidge

Bank: National Provincial Bank of England

Place of work: London Holloway branch

Died: 17 November 1917

Jabez Gordon Elvidge was born on 5 June 1886, the son of Albert Elvidge, a meat salesman and farmer, and his wife Sarah. In June 1903, when he was 17 years old, he went to work for National Provincial Bank of England as an apprentice at its Hampstead branch. When he completed his apprenticeship three years later, he remained there as a clerk. He transferred to Holloway branch in February 1909. In late 1916 his manager there described him as 'in every way perfectly satisfactory' and 'a most capable man...with him it has been not what must I do but what can I do, and that has been done absolutely well'. His younger sister Doris later became one of the hundreds of women who took jobs in the bank in the First World War, carrying on the work left behind by men going away to fight.

Elvidge left the bank to go on military service in late 1916. By November 1917 he was a Second Lieutenant in the West Yorkshire Regiment. He was killed in action in France on 17 November 1917. He was 31 years old.

Jabez Elvidge is commemorated on a bank war memorial held at NatWest Group Archives.