Lawrence Wood

Bank: National Provincial Bank

Place of work: London Head Office

Died: 1-2 October 1942

Lawrence Archer Wood was born on 18 April 1910, the son of Gertrude and Arthur Lawrence Wood. He was educated at Hymers College, Kingston upon Hull.

In July 1928 Wood joined the staff of National Provincial Bank as a probationer at its Hull Union Bank branch. He was promoted to clerk in October 1930 and moved to Spalding branch in 1934, to London Chancery Lane branch in 1936 and to the bank's Administration department at its London head office in 1937. He joined the Territorial Army in 1939. 

As he was a territorial, Wood was called up on the outbreak of war and left his job at the bank to go on full time military service. He was soon promoted to Lieutenant. He was in the 1st Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment and fought during the Battle of Hong Kong, December 1941, at which he was taken prisoner when the Allied forces surrendered to the Japanese. 

In October 1942, having been a prisoner of war for almost a year, Lieutenant Lawrence Wood was one of the hundreds of Allied soldiers aboard the Japanese troop ship the Lisbon Maru when it was torpedoed and sunk. Wood was one of the 800 British soldiers who were drowned that night. He was 32 years old.