THE death of a UK-based member of the International Brigades who fought in the Spanish Civil War has left a man in Australia as the last surviving British volunteer.

David Lomon, who died aged 94, was a 19-year-old rag-and-bone man in east London when he volunteered to join left-wing forces battling General Francisco Franco's nationalist troops in the 1936-1939 conflict.

Some 35,000 foreign fighters, including some 2800 Americans and about 2000 Britons, went to Spain from 52 countries to fight fascism, joining the vain bid to stop Franco overthrowing the Second Republic.

The last survivor of the 2000 Britons is Stan Hilton, who lives in a nursing home in Australia, according to the newspaper.

Lomon, who was Jewish, volunteered after clashing with British Union of Fascists supporters at the Battle of Cable Street in east London in 1936.

He later served in the British navy in World War II.

"He was very modest and unassuming," said Jim Jump, secretary of the International Brigade Memorial Trust.

"He had a conventional life when he returned. He was not the type to boast about what he did. He was a lovely man: very polite; a classic English gentleman," The Independent quoted him as saying.

Lomon died in Slough, west of London, on Friday.