Herbert Dawes

Bank: Westminster Bank

Place of work: Head Office, London

Died: 16 August 1940

Herbert Dawes, known to his bank colleagues as Bertie, was born on 18 March 1901, the son of Elizabeth and Edward Henry Dawes. He joined the staff of London County & Westminster Bank at its head office on Lothbury, London in December 1916. Although he was not yet of military age, he was keen to serve his country in the First World War, and early in 1918 he left the bank to join the merchant navy. 

He returned to the bank after the end of the First World War, working in the general office and trustee department at head office before being transferred to the income tax department in 1930, where he remained for the next ten years. From 1923 the bank's name was Westminster Bank. 

Outside work Dawes enjoyed photography and carpentry, and made model railways, yachts and wireless sets. He played the cello and was an active member of the bank's orchestral society as well as the staff photography club. A bank colleague later recalled, 'In all his activities and in his work at the Bank he showed an extraordinary power of concentration and appreciation of detail, but he will be most remembered for his unbounded cheerfulness and strength of character.'

After the outbreak of the Second World War Dawes joined the Home Guard, where he was, according to his obituary in the bank's staff magazine, 'a most appreciated member.' He died at New Malden railway station, killed by enemy machine gun fire during an air raid, on 16 August 1940. He was 39 years old and left a widow, Vera, and two young children.