Ronald Innes

Bank: Parr’s Bank

Place of work: Manchester branch

Died: 7 August 1915

Ronald Stewart Innes was born in Dalkeith in 1889, the son of George Donald Innes and his wife Elizabeth Begbie (née Stewart). The family later moved to Manchester, where George became managing director of an iron foundry.

In about 1906 Innes went to work for Parr's Bank at its Salford Regent Road branch. After about five years there he moved to Manchester Sackville Street branch. He later moved to the bank's main Manchester branch in York Street. Outside work, Innes was an active member of the Manchester Civic League of Help, which worked to improve living conditions for the city's poor.

In August 1914 Innes volunteered for the army, and in December that year was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Manchester Regiment. He was posted to the Dardanelles in July 1915, and was killed in action there on 7 August 1915. He was 25 years old.

His obituary in the bank's staff magazine recalled, 'Innes had an engaging and stimulating personality, and an outlook not limited by the bounds of the Bank's service. Not one of those who consider that education ends with schooldays, he acquired by systematic and diligent reading a familiarity with the classics and general literature rare among men of much riper years. He was particularly well-read in history and politics. His tastes were catholic, and he never neglected an opportunity of seeing and hearing what was best - fine scenery, historic cities at home and abroad, the great musician, the famous explorer, the political orator, all drew him. Continually progressing and widening his horizon, he was, it might well be said, graduating in world-citizenship; and there is no question that in time he would have made his mark - outside of the Bank if not in it. He had a keen sense of values of all kinds - the value of money, of time, of duty and its many calls...his life was a useful one and full of promise. He laid it down in the cause of justice and liberty which he held most dear.'

Ronald Innes is commemorated on a bank war memorial at NatWest Manchester City Centre branch.