Ronald King

Bank: Westminster Bank

Place of work: Head Office, London

Died: 5 February 1942

Ronald Oliver Clayton King was born on 10 March 1912, the son of Sydney Valentine King, a printer, and his wife Lilian Medora Jennie King. He joined the staff of Westminster Bank in March 1930, and worked in the head office Joint General Managers department, Metropolitan Control. A colleague there later recalled, 'The abiding memory is of a most positive person; of studied views tenaciously defended and of high principals eagerly upheld.'

King initially held pacifist views, but after the Munich crisis of 1938 he changed his mind and joined the King's Royal Rifles as a territorial soldier. He left the bank to go on active service early in the Second World War, and was subsequently commissioned into the Royal Norfolk Regiment.

In 1940 he married Elizabeth, whom he had met when they both worked at the bank. Sometime afterwards, Second Lieutenant King was posted to Singapore, where he was wounded and died on 5 February 1942. Although he was reported missing at the time, his death was not confirmed until the end of the war. 

Second Lieutenant King was 29 years old and left a widow and young child.