Norman was born in 1896 of a Quaker family living in Blackburn, Lancashire. In November 1915 he followed his elder brother Laurence in volunteering for the Friends’ Ambulance Unit, which Laurence had joined in January 1915. Driving an ambulance in Picardy, on the Aisne Front Norman was killed by a German shell along with fellow FAU volunteer Hugo Jackson. It was reported later, “To several Friends’ families the FAU mission of healing brought tragic bereavement. The Gripper home would have been even more sadly bereft had not Norman bidden his brother go on a different ambulance on a day of special peril, so that their parents should not lose both”.

Norman is buried in Vailly British Cemetery, Aisne, France.