PROMOTING THE HISTORY AND ARCHIVES OF MT COMPASS
Watters, Laurence
Laurence Lovelock Watters (Private)
Born in 1906 at Minlaton, Laurence was the second son of Wilfred & Hilda Watters (nee Lovelock) of Brentwood, on the Yorke Peninsula. Wilfred was originally from Willunga.
Laurence married Eva Marion Lee on 15th March 1934 at the Kenton Valley Baptist Church and they moved to Nangkita the following year after purchasing 514 acres on Nangkita Road (Sections 239 & 241). Two years later they were advertising dry stumps for firewood at 16/- a ton ($1.50) from the land that had been cleared.
By 1938, Laurence had become President of the local society of the ‘Band of Hope’ Christian Group. He had previously been mentioned in reports published in the Methodist Church’s “Christian Commonwealth” newspaper, as giving temperance talks to this particular group of young people.
Laurence’s Service Record shows he enlisted at Clare in 1940 and was transported to Singapore in 1941. He was listed as a Prisoner of War the following year, after which his whereabouts became unknown. In 1943, Laurence’s Records were updated to show he was “interned - Borneo Camp”. The next recorded entry is two years later (1945) and states he died of the diseases malaria and Beri Beri while still a prisoner.
Private Laurence Watters is believed to have died in Borneo on 22nd December 1944, at the age of 38.
His land was sub-divided into four blocks in 1945 and sold to Teddy Hailstone, Ralph Tune, Hector Brown and Virtue Lane.
Eva Marion Watters did not remarry and passed away in 1991 at the age of 88. She was cremated at Centennial Park.
They did not have any children.
References: trove.nle.gov.au, NAA Service Records, Land Services SA website and geni.com
