Killed in action at Loos aged 41
No known grave: Loos Memorial panel 31-34
Laurence was born in Tokyo to William Anderson FRCS, a Professor of Anatomy at the Royal Academy in London and an important collector and scholar of Japanese art. He is thought to have been educated at Westminster, and Christ Church.
“Mr. Laurence Anderson who has been a good many years in Siam, has now been appointed manager of Devon Estates (Malacca) Ltd., a company (formerly a private one) formed to acquire a large piece of land in the Merlimau District.”
Straits Times Jan 3 1911
Laurence’s son, John Laurence was born in Bangkok in 1900 and censuses show him staying with his widowed maternal grandmother, Sophia Eleanor Mercer in 1901 at 8 Edith Road, Hammersmith and in 1911 at 11 Grand Parade, St Leonards-on-Sea. From this, we assume that Sophia’s daughter Eleanor M V Mercer born in 1876 was Laurence Anderson’s wife.
There were two Territorial Battalions of the Lincolnshire Regiment. A territorial battalion was one raised and largely financed by the local County Territorial Committee. The 4th was in existence in August 1914, recruited from the south of the County.
His name is on a list of soldiers who died in the Great War.