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Geoffrey Purslow and the sinking of the SS Laconia
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Geoffrey Purslow was born on 19th January 1916, the eldest son of George and Mabel Purslow. He grew up in Cheddleton, and Wolverhampton; then attended grammar school in the Shropshire market town of Newport.

Geoffrey Purslow studied medicine at the University of Birmingham. The Second World War broke out before Geoffrey had completed his studies, and once he had graduated he entered the Merchant Navy to serve as a ship's surgeon.
Picture showing the S S Laconia at sea
The Cunard Line S S Laconia

In September 1942 Geoffrey Purslow was serving aboard the Cunard SS Laconia when the vessel was torpedoed and sunk off the coast of West Africa. After days adrift in a lifeboat, and gravely ill, he told a fellow survivor, that "As I cannot be of any further help, and if I am now a source of danger to you all, it is better that I should go".

With that he stepped over the side of the lifeboat and disappeared from sight as the sea closed over him.

The Laconia was one of over four thousand, seven hundred merchant ships sunk during the Second World War. Geoffrey Purslow was one of thirty-two thousand lives lost. The losses of the early years of the war peaked in 1942, the year the Laconia was sunk.
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