Terence Capon Read worked for the Norwich Union Fire Insurance Society Ltd.in Shanghai.Known as ‘Terry’, he joined Head Office staff on 14 April 1902 having been educated at Woodbridge Grammar School. According to the staff magazine: "It was not long before his sterling qualities as a sportsman attracted the athletic members of the Staff, and Read became a regular player for the excellent football team which then represented the office." He was appointed to Shanghai in January 1912 "to fill an important position in connection with the Society's business there", managing the insurance department of the company's agents Messrs Fearon, Daniel & Co. He joined local volunteers at the start of the war and came back to England in December 1914 to enlist. According to his obituary: "His enthusiastic patriotism meeting with many rebuffs at the hands of the military authorities, he went direct to the War Office, and, greatly daring, asked for his commission. A wordy warfare ensued, but Read eventually emerged triumphantly from the building, his commission - his passport to eternity, as it turned out - in his pocket." Gazetted to the Norfolk Regiment early in 1915 he volunteered for special duty at the front after completing his training and died of wounds received on active service in Gaza while serving as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Norfolk Regiment 1st /5th Battalion. He was remembered in the staff magazine as an: “absolutely reliable and unflinchingly loyal friend… killed in Gaza playing the game to the last.” The General Manager wrote to his uncle that he:  “was very highly thought of in our service and I had marked him out for promotion when, as I hoped, he returned to us at the close of hostilities”. He was 32 when he died.

Anna Stone