John Laybourne

Bank: Parr's Bank

Place of work: Liverpool Market branch

Died: 26 March 1917

John Oscar Laybourne was born in Liverpool on 13 June 1891, the son of John Henry Laybourne and his wife Ada Sophia. He began working for Parr's Bank in about 1908.

Early in the First World War Laybourne left his job at the bank's Liverpool Market branch to go on military service in the Liverpool Scottish. In 1915 he was acting as an interpreter between the British and French lines in France when he was targeted by a German sniper. The sniper's bullet struck the tree behind which Laybourne was sheltering, and ricocheted into his face, causing a serious injury to his ear. He was invalided home, and later underwent a radical mastoidectomy.

Laybourne returned to active service, and was commissioned into the Cheshire Regiment. Second Lieutenant John Oscar Laybourne was killed in action in Palestine on 26 March 1917. He was 25 years old.