Lawrence Joyce was a student at Blyth Secondary School for Boys, which he left in 1926 to attend Bede College, Durham. Here he studied Physics, with Mathematics and Geology as subsidiary subjects. He left in 1930 with a BSc (Hons) and his teaching diploma, and went straight to the South Shields High School at the start of the school year in 1930.

In 1935, he was able to gain an "Inter" BA with London University in Latin, English and Pure and Applied Mathematics, and in 1936 he transferred to the new school in Harton.

He left the school at the end of 1945 to do his National Service at Durham University.

He died in Berkshire early in 1982.