Norman Bainbridge Favell was born in Stoke on Trent in 1886. He attended Bromsgrove school in Worcestershire as a boarder, and later gained a BA at Pembroke College Cambridge in 1906.
While at Cambridge he joined the University Volunteer Rifle Corps and 2 years later, along with the other volunteers, transferred to the new Territorial Army organisation. He was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant.
In 1909 he set sail for Colombo in Ceylon aboard the SS Warwickshire to work for the Ceylon Government Survey Department. While in Ceylon he carried on his military associations, becoming a Captain in the Ceylon Light Infantry.
At the outbreak of war in 1914, at the age of 28, he returned to England, arriving in London on the 13th December on the SS Derbyshire. No doubt already aware that his older brother had been lost at sea just 3 months earlier, sunk by a German U Boat.
Norman became a Captain in the 6th battalion of the Rifle Brigade, a training battalion kept in reserve in the Medway area ready to act against any potential invasion. Norman was a witness to an accidental shooting in camp at Sheerness when a mistakenly loaded rifle went off, instantly killing a soldier standing nearby.
Norman was later attached to Royal Engineers and it may have been in this capacity that he embarked for the Mediterranean on HMS / SS Olympic on 22nd November, 1915 headed for the Greek island of Mudros. Olympic had been the sister ship to Titanic and had been converted to a troopship, complete with a dazzle camouflage paint scheme. This was her first voyage in this role, carrying 6,000 troops to Mudros which was close to the Gallipoli peninsula and used as a British naval base as well as a base for troops being landed in Turkey.
Norman’s medal index card shows he was awarded the 1914-15 Star, British War medal, and Victory medal along with mentioned in despatches emblems.
In 1924 at the age of 38, Norman departed England from Liverpool, leaving on 28th November heading for Accra in Ghana, aboard the SS Adda, of the African Steam Ship co with 186 other passengers.
He returned from Ghana to Plymouth in March two years later, stating his occupation as Surveyor giving his intended address as Morar, Churchfields Weybridge. But in August of the same year he was heading off again, departing for the Cape in South Africa, a 40 day voyage on the SS Umvoti with 68 other passengers.
In 1936 the London Gazette lists Norman among Military Promotions of the regular forces, so he was still serving in the army in some capacity. An entry for the same year in his service record index lists him as a Captain in the Connaught Rangers and this possibly refers to Emergency Reserve Officers.
At some point after he retired, Norman wrote his memoirs entitled “Reminiscences of Colonial Service in the Survey Departments of Ceylon and Gold House” held in the Bodleian Library in Oxford.
In 1961 at the age of 75, Norman married Rose Latimer Fenwick Blair, the 2nd daughter of the late Rev and Mrs W H T Blair, of Bootle, Lancashire. The wedding took place at Grahamstown South Africa. It was at Charles Street, Grahamstown that Norman died in 1969. His passing was posted in the London Gazette and his probate valued his property in England at £3,131.