Lawrence Jack Preedy, born on 5th June 1898, was admitted to King Edward’s School in January 1912, after 3 years at a private preparatory school. Lawrence lived with his parents, Gertrude and Jonathan, a manufacturing jeweller, and his younger brother at 3, Broughton Road, Handsworth (and later at Blackroot Road, Sutton Coldfield).
Lawrence only attended KES for the Removes Year, and although the records do not state why he left, they do suggest both academic and athletic promise. He was a capable scientist, placing 3rd in his class, and he won the Removes Gymnastics medal. After leaving School, he played for Sutton Coldfield Cricket Club and was an organist at All Saints Church, Streetly.
On his 18th birthday, Lawrence joined the Artists Rifles Officer Training Corps as a Private Soldier, leaving for the front in September 1917. In November of the same year, he obtained his commission as a Second Lieutenant with the 4th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment. He was killed in action on 31st March 1918 near Feuchy, aged just nineteen. Surviving letters record that whilst trying to rescue a wounded soldier, he was shot through the head by a sniper and killed instantly. He has no known grave but is commemorated on the Arras Memorial, France, and on the Four Oaks Memorial, Sutton Coldfield.