Robert Thomas Lawrence, Baker

I recently wrote about getting access to scans from a sketchbook of Arnold's from internment in Norway during the First World War. One of the lovely things about this sketchbook is that it not only contains some lovely sketches by Arnold but also some by some of the other internees. Over the next few weeks I will featuring blog posts on these other men including the art work as well as photographs and what ever other information I can unearth about these men

The first man I would like to introduce you to is Robert Thomas Lawrence who was the baker onboard HMS India.

Born in a village near Guildford in 1880, Robert seems to have trained to be a baker from an early age. The 1901 census lists him as a boarder but working as a baker and then after the word 'baker' is the word 'Journeyman'. I was unfamiliar with the use of this word but after some additional research I have learnt that a journeyman is one who has completed an apprenticeship in their chosen field and has become a 'master' craftsman. It seems sensible then that when Robert volunteered for the war he was given a job using the skills he had honed over fifteen years. At the camp Robert was given the prisoner number 46 and was roomed in hut 5 with Arnold. He is mentioned in some of Commander Kennedy's correspondence for using an Electric Baking Plant.

After the war, Robert continued baking, first working for J Lyons and Co, one of the largest food factories in the United Kingdom and then moving to Essex with his wife, Ada and their sons Robert, Kenneth and Teddy. The 1939 register finds Robert in Ilford working as a baker and confectioner and he remained in the area until 1957 when he died at the age of 77.

The photos above from left to right - the sketch from the sketchbook drawn 1916 or 1917. Robert's photograph from his merchant shipping enrolment. Robert in a photograph from the camp