Daphne Spencer

Bank: Westminster Bank

Place of work: Wincanton branch

Died: 15 May 1944

Daphne Grace Spencer was born on 4 April 1915, the only daughter of Robert Edmund Spencer, a banker, and his wife Grace Annie. She had a younger brother, Kenneth. In 1935 Robert was appointed manager of Westminster Bank's Wincanton branch, and the family went to live in the flat above the branch.

Before the outbreak of the Second World War Daphne worked as a shorthand typist, but in 1941 she joined her father at the bank, one of many women hired to fill vacancies left by bank men leaving to undertake war service. A bank colleague later recalled that, 'her constant cheerfulness and willingness to help in any way endeared her to both the staff and the customers.'

On the night of 14-15 May 1944 a German bomber, probably returning from a raid over Bristol, jettisoned three bombs over Wincanton. One badly damaged the premises of the town's Westminster Bank branch. Daphne, asleep in the flat upstairs, was killed immediately. She was 29 years old. Two months later, on 17 July 1944, her brother Kenneth was killed while serving in the RAF.

Daphne Spencer is commemorated on a bank war memorial at NatWest Shaftesbury The Commons branch.