Robert Horridge

Bank: Parr's Bank
Place of work: General Manager's Department, London
Died: 17 November 1914

Robert Horridge was born in Bolton in 1888, the son of Albert Horridge, a tailor, and his wife Alice. He won a scholarship to Manchester Grammar School, and was later awarded an exhibition to study at Wadham College, Oxford. He was successively secretary, treasurer and president of the Old Mancunians' Association in Oxford, and became a member of the University Officers Training Corps. He gained his degree in 1911, and in 1912 went to work for Parr's Bank in its head office general manager's department.

Horridge was a territorial soldier, an officer in the Special Reserve Battalion of the Manchester Regiment. Lieutenant Horridge was mobilised for active service at the outbreak of war in 1914, and was killed in action at Ypres, Belgium on 17 November 1914. He was 26 years old, and was the first man from Parr's Bank to be killed in the war.

His obituary in the bank's staff magazine noted, 'quiet, competent and precise, he combined with a fine modesty undoubted abilities and a certain personal dignity, which was but the token of his unselfish and unassuming character. Only those who knew him well - for he was not the man to talk of himself - were acquainted with his activities as a member of the Cavendish Club and his earnest and painstaking work at various forms of social service'. It went on to conclude, 'we can but feel that the manner of his end was such as he would have wished, for he was a soldier first and a man of business second'.

Robert Horridge is commemorated on a bank war memorial held at NatWest Group Archives.