On a Memorial Wall, Darlington West Cemetery is the name of Second Officer Walter George Lloyd Laxton serving with the Merchant Navy on S.S.Gothic who died 25/02/1940 and was cremated at Darlington Crematorium.

Born in Bombay, India in 1906 to Indian born parents Richard and Lucy Mary (nee Pegge) Laxton, Walter George Lloyd Laxton was the older of their two sons, Richard Cartwright Laxton having been born in 1909.

Returning to London during the 1930s, in the third quarter of 1936 he married Marie Douglas Palmer in Wandsworth, and lived with her mother at 38 Pinfold Street in Streatham, where their son Graham was born on 24th July 1939.

Nothing is known of his early service with the Merchant Navy.

On 22nd February 1940 Walter was Second Officer on S.S. Gothic, a British steam tanker, which returned to port within two hours of sailing, having been attacked by German aircraft off the mouth of the River Tees.  The ship was riddled by machine gun bullets and Captain J. Cooper Nesbitt and Second Officer Laxton were injured and admitted to hospital in Middlesbrough.

Walter George Lloyd Laxton died from machine gun injuries in Middlesbrough Hospital, with his wife at his bedside, on 25th February 1940.

Walter George Lloyd Laxton is remembered at Darlington on D40.064 and on our List of Ships’ Crews.