Charles Columbus Dorman was born on 21st October 1892, and was the middle of three children to James and Margaret Dorman. Charles’ parents both hailed from Belfast, Country Antrim, but the 1901 census records his and his older sister’s birthplace as America. No baptism documents are available and no later information supports this, so, while his unusual middle name may suggest the place of his birth, it seems destined to remain unclear.
When he left school, Charles found work as a printer’s apprentice. He sought more, however, and was drawn to a life at sea. On 29th November 1910, he enlisted in the Royal Navy as an Ordinary Seaman. His service records confirm that he was 5ft 3.5ins (1.61m) tall, with brown hair, hazel eyes and a fresh complexion.
Charles was sent to HMS Pembroke – the Royal Naval Dockyard in Chatham, Kent – for his training. In January 1911, he was assigned to the ill-fated HMS Bulwark, before moving to the battleship HMS Implacable three months later. He would remain on board until the summer of 1914, gaining a promotion to Able Seaman during his three year stint there.
Charles was serving on Implacable when war was declared. At the beginning of September, after a week back in Chatham, was assigned to the sloop HMS Cormorant. After six months aboard, the cruiser HMS Blenheim became his home, and he spent the next month supporting troops who were being sent to Gallipoli.
By this point, Able Seaman Dorman had become unwell. He had contracted the autoimmune disease pemphigus, resulting in blistering to his skin and body. He returned to HMS Pembroke, and was stood down from the service on medical grounds 9th July 1916.
It is unclear whether or not Charles was admitted to hospital for his condition. Either way, he succumbed to the illness on 31st August 1916. He was just 23 years of age.
Charles Columbus Dorman’s family appear to have been unable to bring their boy back to Ireland for burial. Instead, he was laid to rest in Woodlands Cemetery, Gillingham, not far from the Kent naval base he had come to call home.
Details of William Alliston Turner’s life are a challenge to track down. According to later military records, he was born on 28th February 1888 in St Helier, Jersey. While there are a couple of census returns that may be connected to him, there is nothing to definitively confirm his early life.
William enlisted in the Royal Navy on 9th January 1904. He was just shy of his 14th birthday, and so was given the rank of Boy 2nd Class. Over the next fifteen months, he was attached to the training ship HMS St Vincent, moored at Haslar in Hampshire. In August 1902, he was promoted to Boy 1st Class, and was given his first posting, on board the cruiser HMS Edgar, in May 1905.
After a short spell at HMS Victory, the Royal Naval Dockyard in Portsmouth, William was assigned to HMS Powerful, a protected cruiser, and he would spend two years on board. During this time, he came of age, and was given the rank of Ordinary Seaman. His service records at the time confirm that he was 5ft 5.5ins (1.66m) tall, with dark hair, brown eyes and a fresh complexion. He was also noted as having two tattoos – a heart on the back of his right hand, and the letter T on the back of his left.
William seemed to have taken to his life at sea with some ease. On 1st January 1907 he was promoted to the rank of Able Seaman, and over the next eight years, he served on twelve different vessels, returning to Portsmouth between each voyage.
What had become a good career for Able Seaman Turner, began to take a bit of a downturn. He spent six separate periods of time in the brig between 1908 and 1914, totalling 121 days in total. On 19th March 1915, William was medically discharged from naval service, suffering from neurasthenia, or PTSD as it is now known.
At this point, William’s trail goes cold. He returned to the Channel Islands, and passed away on 13th April 1917: he was 29 years of age.
William Alliston Turner was laid to rest in the quiet graveyard of St Lawrence Church in Jersey.
Walter Brett was born in Batheaston, Somerset, on 12th July 1896. The fourth of seven children, he was the second son of George and Louisa Brett. George was a groom and coachman from Norfolk, and his work took the family around the country. Louisa had been born in Staffordshire, their oldest child, daughter Florence, had been born in South Wales. By 1893, the family had settled in Somerset, but the next census, taken in 1901, found them in Branksome, Dorset.
When Walter finished his schooling, he found work as an errand boy for a hairdresser. By now the Bretts had moved back to Somerset, where George – and his widowed father, John – were working as coachmen for a Mr Page. There were seven in the household – George, Louisa, Walter and three of his siblings, and George Sr – and the family were living at 1 Nelson Terrace, on Walcot Street, Bath, in a six-roomed cottage.
Walter sought bigger and better things for himself. His older brother, Frederick, had left home, and was working as a grocer’s assistant in Brislington – now a suburb of Bristol – and he too wanted a career. On 23rd January 1912, he enlisted in the Royal Navy. As he was only 15 year of age, he was given the rank of Boy 2nd Class, and was sent to HMS Impregnable, a training ship based in Devonport, Devon, for his induction.
Obviously showing signs of ability and commitment to the role, Walter was promoted to Boy 1st Class just seven months later. His first assignment was on board the battleship HMS Cornwallis, and he spent the remainder of 1912 serving with her.
After a brief period back in Devonport – this time at HMS Vivid – and six weeks aboard HMS Lancaster, Boy 1st Class Brett was assigned to the ship that would become his home for the next three years. HMS Lion was a battlecruiser, and she was to serve as the flagship of her class of ships during the First World War.
Walter came of age while serving on Lion, and was given the rank of Ordinary Seaman on his eighteenth birthday. His service records show that he was 5ft 6ins (1.68m) tall, with brown hair, blue eyes and a fresh complexion. He was also noted as having a mole on his stomach.
Walter was promoted to Able Seaman in the summer of 1915, and remained on board HMS Lion until the end of April the following year. His ship had been involved in a number of skirmishes by this point, including the Battle of Heligoland Bight, the defence of the raid on Scarborough and the Battle of Dogger Bank. In June 1916, she would be caught up in the Battle of Jutland, but Able Seaman Brett was back on terra firma by this point, and was billeted in Devonport.
On 1st August 1916, Walter was given a new posting, when he was assigned to the dreadnought battleship HMS Ajax. Acting as support to the Norwegian convoys in the North Sea, he was to remain on board until the closing weeks of the war.
Walter’s brother Frederick, meanwhile, was also caught up in the conflict. He had enlisted in the Gloucestershire Regiment, and was assigned to the 12th Battalion. By the spring of 1917, his unit was based in Arras, and was Private Brett was heavily involved. Following an attack on 8th May, he was declared missing, presumed dead. He was 24 years of age, and is commemorated on the Arras memorial.
Back at sea, in October 1918, Able Seaman Walter Brett became unwell, contracting a combination of influenza and pneumonia. He was transferred to the Hospital Ship Garth Castle, but the conditions were to get the better of him. He passed away on 27th October, at the age of 22 years old.
Walter Brett was brought back to Somerset for burial. His parents had lost both of their sons, but were able to lay their youngest to rest in Locksbrook Cemetery, Bath.
Ernest Roye Hewett was born on 18th April 1898 and was the third of twelve children to Alfred and Ada. Alfred was a coachman and groom and, while both he and Ada were born in Cornwall, it was in Budleigh Salterton, Devon, that the family were born and raised.
When he finished his schooling, Ernest found work as a butcher’s boy, but when sought bigger and better things. His oldest brother, Ralph, had enlisted in the army by the time of the 1911 census and, by that October, his next oldest brother, Leslie, had enlisted in the Royal Navy. Ernest felt a career in the military was his destiny and, on 12th September 1913, he also joined the navy.
As he was under age at this point, he was given the rank of Boy 2nd Class, and sent to HMS Impregnable, the training establishment in Devonport, for his induction. His service records show that he was 5ft 2.5ins (1.59m) tall, with brown hair, hazel eyes and a fresh complexion.
Ernest spent nine months training, moving from Impregnable to HMS Powerful, and gaining a promotion to Boy 1st Class in the process. In June 1914, he was assigned to the cruiser HMS Edgar, remaining on board for six months, by which point war had broken out.
On 18th December 1914, Lance Corporal Ralph Hewett was killed in action, aged just 20 years old. Attached to the 2nd Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment, he was caught in fighting in Northern France, and is commemorated on the Le Touret Memorial.
Ernest, by this point, had been assigned to another ship, the armed merchant cruiser HMS Viknor. Patrolling the seas off Scotland, towards the end of the month, she was tasked with locating and detaining the Norwegian ship Bergensfjord, on board which was a suspected German spy.
The vessel was located and escorted to Kirkwall in the Orkneys, and the suspect and a number of other prisoners, were taken on board the Viknor to be transported to Liverpool. The ship and crew were never to reach their destination. On 13th January 1915, she sank in heavy seas off the Irish Coast: no distress signal was made and all hands were lost.
BODY WASHED ASHORE – Another body has been washed ashore at Pallntoy Port, about six miles from Ballycastle. The body was that of a man of about 5ft 10in. in height. He was dressed in a blue jacket, and wore a service blue webbed belt, on which was the name E. F. Hewett. In the pocket of the trousers was a boatswain’s whistle.
Freeman’s Journal: 24th February 1915
Already in mourning for Ralph, Alfred and Ada were unable to bring 16-year-old Ernest Roye Hewett back home. Instead, he was laid to rest in Ballintoy parish church, County Antrim.
The heartbreak was to continue for the Hewett family. Leslie’s career had gone from strength to strength and, by the time of his older brother’s death, he had been promoted to Able Seaman. In the summer of 1915, he was assigned to the cruiser HMS Europa, remaining aboard for the next year as it patrolled the Mediterranean. In July 1916 he fell ill, having contracted malaria. This was to prove his undoing: he passed away from the condition on 21st July, at 20 years old.
Able Seaman Leslie Hewett was laid to rest in the Mikra British Cemetery in Greece. His parents had now lost their three oldest sons, and had no way to reach their final resting places.
William George Masters was born in Padstow, Cornwall, on 15th April 1877. The older of two children, his parents were Samuel and Catherine (or Kate) Masters. Samuel was an agricultural labourer, but his son sought a life at sea.
On 7th November 1894, William enlisted in the Royal Navy. Sent to HMS Northampton, an armoured cruiser repurposed as a training ship, he took on the role of Boy 2nd Class. His service records show that he was 5ft 6.5ins (1.69m) tall, with brown eyes, auburn hair and a freckled complexion. He was noted as having a scar on the third finger of his right hand.
Over the next six months, William showed a remarkable dedication to the job. On 7th February 1895 he was promoted to Boy 1st Class, and, just three months later, he came of age and assumed the rank of Ordinary Seaman.
William’s shore base was to be HMS Vivid, the Royal Naval Dockyard in Devonport, Devon, and he returned here regularly over the twelve years of his service. Ordinary Seaman Masters served on ten ships during this time and, on 1st May 1902, was promoted to Able Seaman.
His time in the navy wasn’t to be without incident, however, and he had two spells in the brig – for three days in July 1897, and ten days in December 1905. His misdemeanours are lost to time, but they did blemish an otherwise clear term of service for William.
William married Laura Oldham in 1905: they would go on to have three children – William Jr, Emily and Katharine. He was stood down to reserve status in April 1907 and, by the time of the next census in 1911, the family were living in Church Street, Padstow. No longer working for the Royal Navy, he was, instead, self-employed as a general labourer.
When war was declared in August 1914, William was called back into action. Assigned to HMS Argonaut, he once again too the rank of Able Seaman. He spent a year on board, patrolling the Atlantic, before the protected cruiser was converted to a hospital ship.
In September 1915, Able Seaman Masters transferred to another cruiser – HMS King Alfred – which served in the Mediterranean. He remained on board until the following summer, by which point his health was beginning to become affected.
William returned to Devonport in August 1916, remaining there for a couple of months. On 4th October, he as medically discharged, suffering from myocarditis, a heart condition.
At this point William’s trail goes cold. He returned to Cornwall, passing away at home on 13th September 1917: he was 40 years of age.
William George Masters was laid to rest in Padstow Cemetery, on the outskirts of the town he called home.
The life Albert Bendell is one of dedication to naval service. Born in Portsmouth on 28th May 1865, his parents were Master at Arms John Bendell and his Jersey-born wife, Eliza.
The family had moved to St Martin, Jersey, by the time of the 1871 census. Given the amount of time her husband spent at sea, it would seem likely that Eliza, who had three young children to raise on her own, wanted to be close to her family.
Albert was keen to follow in his father’s footsteps and, on 6th December 1880 he enlisted in the Royal Navy. Just fifteen years old, his service records show that he was just 5ft 1.5ins (1.56m) tall, with blue eyes, light hair and a fair complexion.
Albert’s dedication to the role was obvious: starting off as Boy 2nd Class, he steadily – and rapidly – rose through the ranks. Over the next twelve years, he served on seven ships and shore bases. He was promoted to Boy 1st Class in September 1891, while serving on the training ship HMS St Vincent.
When he came of age in May 1883, he was given the rank of Ordinary Seaman: within a year he had risen to Able Seaman, and achieved the role of Leading Seaman in January 1888. Just three months later, Petty Officer Bendell was beginning a two-year service on board HMS Fearless.
In April 1893, Albert received a further promotion, and a change in direction within the Royal Navy. He was now a Gunner, a standing officer’s role, permanently attached to HMS Duke of Wellington – returning to the first ship he had been assigned to nine years earlier.
On 17th September 1900, Albert married Amelia Renouf, the daughter of a land proprietor from St Martin, Jersey. The couple wed in St Helier, Albert giving his profession as Warrant Officer. At 37, Amelia was a year older than her new husband: the couple would not go on to have any children.
Albert’s rise through the ranks continued. The 1911 census found him moored in Malta. He was Chief Gunner on HMS Egmont: the importance of his role on board highlighted by the fact that he was the 11th person out of 188 to be recorded on the document.
When war came to Europe, Albert served his King and Country proud. He was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant and, in June 1919, he was awarded the MBE “for valuable services as Officer-in-Charge, Defensively Armed Merchant Ships, Southampton.” [The Edinburgh Gazette, 1st July 1919]
This distinguished life was beginning to take its toll, however, and, on 16th March 1920, after nearly 40 years in naval service, Albert was medically stood down. Suffering from dyspepsia, he returned to Jersey, and his home, La Rosaye, in St Martin.
Albert Bendell’s health was to get the better of him. He passed away on 26th April 1920, at the age of 54 years of age. He was laid to rest in the peaceful graveyard of St Martin’s Church, Jersey.
Amelia remained on the island for the remainder of her life. She passed away on 31st August 1943, at the height of Jersey’s German occupation, at the age of 80 years old. She was laid to rest with Albert, husband and wife reunited after more than 23 years.
Thomas Charles Slade was born in Bristol, Gloucestershire, on 13th March 1880. One of twins, he and his sibling Ernest were two of nine children to Charles and Elizabeth Slade. Not long after the twins were born, the family had moved to Minehead, Somerset, where both Charles, who was a mason and bricklayer, and Elizabeth had hailed from.
Whilst Ernest seemed content to remain in Somerset – going on to become a poultry farmer – Thomas sought a life of adventure. Foregoing his gardening job, he enlisted in the Royal Navy, setting his sights on a life at sea.
Thomas’ service records show that he joined up on 12th November 1895. He stood just 5ft 2ins (1.57cm) tall, with brown hair, blue eyes and a ruddy complexion. As he was to young to formally join up, he was give the rank of Boy 2nd Class, and sent to HMS Impregnable, the shore-based training establishment in Devonport, Devon.
Boy Slade seemed to create a good impression. He was promoted to Boy 1st Class in July 1896, and the follow February was given his first posting, on board the battleship HMS Benbow. This was the ship he was serving on when he turned 18 and, having come of age, he was officially inducted into the navy, and given the rank of Ordinary Seaman.
And so began a glittering career for young Thomas. Over the twelve years of his contract, he served on nine different ships, returning to HMS Vivid – the Royal Naval Dockyard in Devonport – between voyages.
Small in stature, Thomas appears to have been a dedicated young man. His annual reviews noted his character was ‘very good’ every year, and his ability was either ‘very good’, ‘superior’, or ‘excellent’. He was promoted to Able Seaman in September 1898, just eighteen months after becoming an Ordinary Seaman. By June 1906 he rose in rank again, ending his initial term of service as a Leading Seaman.
Thomas was not done with the navy yet, however. He immediately re-enlisted and, over the ensuing years served on a further four vessels. He spent more and more time on board HMS Defiance, the torpedo and mining school ship in Devonport. Whether this was because he was being taught, or was supporting incoming students is unclear, but by September 1912, he had been promoted again.
In November 1915, the now Petty Officer Slade had moved to the depot ship HMS Dido. His new posting supported the Tenth Destroyer Flotilla in the North Sea, patrolling the waters off the East Anglian coast. In February 1917 he moved to another of the support vessels, HMS Sturgeon.
In June 1917, a mine exploded on board, injuring a number of the crew, including Petty Officer Slade. The wounded were transferred to a hospital near Ipswich, and it was here that Thomas was to pass away. The only one of those caught up in the incident to die, he was 37 years of age.
Thomas Charles Slade was brought back to Somerset for burial. He was laid to rest in the sweeping Minehead Cemetery, close to the grave of his mother, Elizabeth, who had passed away nine years before.
Thomas’ headstone also includes an inscription to Roy Thomas Allen, who died six months after him. Roy was the young son of Thomas’ younger sister Emily: an uncle and nephew reunited.
Amos William Cornish was born on 16th August 1887 in Dunster, Somerset. One of five children, his parents were George and Elizabeth Cornish. George, who was a brickmaker, died in 1893, and at this point the family relationships seemed to have broken down.
By the time of the 1901 census, Elizabeth had remarried, and was living with her new husband and Amos’ youngest sibling, sister Lily. Two of Amos’ brothers, Walter and George, were living with his maternal grandparents, while Amos himself was one of three hundred inmates at the Horton Kirby Home for Homeless Boys in the Dartford area of Kent.
Amos’ schooling would have finished by the time he was 14 years old, and he quickly sought work that allow him to support himself as a young man with no home to go to. A career in the Royal Navy seemed to provide that regular pay and, on 4th June 1902, he enlisted.
As he was under age, Amos was given the rank of Boy 2nd Class, and sent to the shore-based training ship HMS Impregnable in Devonport, Devon. His service records show that he stood just 5ft 4ins (1.63m) tall, had brown hair, brown eyes and a fresh complexion. He was noted as having a scar in the centre of his forehead, and a tattoo of clasped hands over a heart on his right forearm.
Boy Cornish transferred to another training vessel – HMS Lion – after a month or so, and it was here, in February 1904, that he was promoted to Boy 1st Class.
Over the next eighteen months, Boy Cornish served at two more training bases – HMS Boscawen and HMS Vivid. He was given his first sea-going posting in April 1905, aboard the cruiser HMS Blake. It was on his next assignment, however, that he came into his own.
In May 1905, Amos boarded HMS Carnarvon, an armoured cruiser that had been launched a couple of years before. He was to spend the next two years as part of her crew, gaining the rank of Ordinary Seaman when he came of age in August 1905, and Able Seaman a year later.
When his time on board Carnarvon came to an end, Amos returned to shore, to HMS Pembroke, the Royal Naval Dockyard in Chatham, Kent, which was to be his base on and off for the next eight years. During that time, he served on six more ships, and rose to the rank of Leading Seaman in December 1911. This new rank, however, seemed not to suit Amos, and he reverted back to his previous rank eight months later.
Able Seaman Cornish’s longest posting was on board the cruiser HMS Antrim. He joined her crew in September 1913 and, over the next three-and-a-half years he travelled far and wide. Initially patrolling the North Sea – particularly around the Scottish Isles – Amos was on board for a journey to Arkhangelsk in Russia. The ship then transferred to the Western Atlantic, patrolling around America and the West Indies.
Able Seaman Cornish returned to British shores in April 1917, to be based at HMS Vivid, the Royal Naval Dockyard in Devonport, for the nest nine months. During this time, he became ill and was admitted to the Royal Naval Hospital in Truro with double pneumonia. Tragically, this was something he was not to recover from: Amos passed away on 4th February 1918, at the age of 30 years old.
While somewhat stretched, Amos’ family bond still remained. Elizabeth was living in Minehead by this point, with husband Alfred and their two children. It was to the Somerset town, therefore, that Amos William Cornish’s body was brought. He was laid to rest in the town’s sweeping cemetery.
George’s death in 1893, and Elizabeth’s remarriage a few years later split the family, and Amos’ siblings all followed separate paths.
The oldest of his siblings, Walter, also followed a military path. He joined the Royal Garrison Artillery as a Gunner and, by the time of the census, was based in Gibraltar. On completing his service, he returned to Somerset, marrying Florence Peddle in 1925. The 1939 Register found the couple living with his cousin, Amelia, while he worked as a gardener. Walter died in Weston-super-Mare in 1962, at the age of 74.
Amos’ next sibling, brother Harold, seems to have had a less fortunate time of things. Absent from the 1901 census, he appears in prison records four years later. He was incarcerated for six months’ hard labour in Brecon Prison, having been found guilty of “Gross Indecency with another male person”. Harold was 14 years and three months old at the time. A newspaper report from around this time suggests that the other party was a George Williams, but there is no further information about him. Harold seems to have come out the other side of his experience, however: the 1911 census recorded him as living and working with draper and grocer James Ridler and his family in Dunster, Somerset.
Amos’ third sibling, sister Lily, found work as a servant to bakers Joseph and Minnie Bagley in Minehead. She married painter and decorator William Whitting in 1916 and the couple went on to have a daughter, Kathleen, eight years later. The family settled in Weston-super-Mare, Lily passing away in 1968, at the age of 75.
The youngest of the Cornish siblings was George. He remained living with his maternal grandparents in Dunster, and found work as a printer. In the spring of 1921, he married Clara Govier and, by the time of the 1939 Register, they couple were living in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, where George was working as a printer and compositor. He died in 1957, at the age of 62 years old.
Melville Franklin was born on 25th November 1890, the youngest of seven children to Edmund and Alice Franklin. Edmund had been born in Birmingham, and had taken up holy orders. He and Alice married in the UK, but their first born, a boy called Victor, had been born in Australia, while their second child, another son called Harold, had been born a year later in Birmingham.
By the late 1880s, Reverend Franklin had taken up the post of vicar of St Nicholas’ Church in Whitchurch, near Bristol, and the family moved there. Unsurprisingly, the parish record for both Melville and his older sister Elsie, both of whom had been born in the village, shows they were baptised in the church by their father.
The Franklin children’s upbringing stood them in good stead in life. The 1901 census found that Victor and Harold had both found work as clerks – Victor for a timber merchant, and Harold for an oil cake merchant – while the following census, in 1911, recorded that another brother, Percival, was a motor expert for an insurance company. Melville, aged 20 by this point, had also found employment as a clerk, his employer being a wine merchant.
Melville wanted to expand his horizons further and, on 25th February 1911, he joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. His service records are sparse, but they confirm that he was 6ft 1ins (1.85m) tall, had fair hair, grey eyes and a fresh complexion.
Melville was formally mobilised on 22nd August 1914. At this early point in the war, there was a surplus of more than 20,000 men from the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, and the powers that be recognised that this was enough to form three brigades of land troops – one of Marines and two Naval.
Able Seaman Franklin was assigned to the Collingwood Battalion of the Royal Naval Division, and appears to have found himself heading to Belgium via Dunkirk by the late summer.
In the general rush to get men to the front line, more than three quarters of the troops went without even the most basic of equipment – packs, mess tins, water bottles.
The Division had no artillery, field ambulances or other support. Melville’s brigade was provided with old rifles, which they were given just three days before embarking for Europe.
Able Seaman Franklin landed in Antwerp shortly before the German invasion, and in the retreat, more than 1500 troops were captured and interned in the Netherlands. Melville, it would seem, was one of those who managed to escape back to England.
This was only to be a very temporary reprieve for Able Seaman Franklin, however. He had returned to Bristol, but had contracted enteric fever, also known as typhoid. This was to get the better of him, and he succumbed to it on 6th November 1914. He was weeks away from his 24th birthday.
Melville Franklin was laid to rest in the graveyard of St Nicholas’ Church, Whitchurch, in a funeral likely to have been presided over by his father, Edmund.
William Charles Green was born on 27th December 1897, one of five children – and the only son – to William and Mary Green. The family’s backstory is a bit hard to decipher.
William Sr was born in the Bath Union Workhouse in 1869 and the only details of his parentage comes in his marriage certificate, which suggests that his father was also called William Green, who was deceased. The same document records the groom as being a miner, and that he and Mary were living in Widcombe, Bath.
The Greens do not appear on the 1901 census – or at least that census record for them is lost to time. The next census return, in 1911, does have the family recorded as living in three room in St George’s Place, Widcombe. This particular census was the first to put the onus on the resident to complete the form, and, in William Green Sr’s case, this has led to a handful of anomalies in the record.
William Sr notes his trade as “going out with commercial travellers and hotel work also”. He confirms that he was “Somerset-born”, but suggests that Mary was born in “South Wells” (a spelling error, which should be South Wales), even though her birth and marriage certificate confirm she came from Bath.
The Greens certainly spent some time in Wales – their eldest daughter was born in Merthyr Tydfil, while William Sr was working as a miner there. By the time of William Jr’s birth, however, the family seem to have returned to England – he is recorded as coming from Bath.
William was 13 years old at the time of the 1911 census, and still at school. When he left education, he found work at a fishmonger, but with war closing in on Europe by this point, he was keen to serve his King and Country.
On 7th May 1915, William enlisted in the Royal Navy and, as he was just under age, he was given the rank of Boy 2nd Class. His service records note that he was 5ft 1in (1.55m) tall, with brown hair, blue eyes and a fresh complexion. Intriguingly the records give the place of his birth as Aberdare, Glamorganshire, but whether it is this document or the 1911 census that is incorrect is impossible to confirm.
Boy Green was initially sent to HMS Impregnable, the training establishment based in Devonport, Devon. He spent four months there and, on the day he was promoted to Boy 1st Class, he was assigned to HMS Defiance, the navy’s Torpedo School, off the Plymouth coast. In October 1915 he was assigned to HMS Fox, and remained on board for the next three years.
Fox was a cruiser that patrolled the seas from the East Indies to Egypt and the Red Sea. While on board, William came of age, and was formally enrolled in the Royal Navy as an Ordinary Seaman. With a character that was classed very good, even if his ability was noted as satisfactory, within eighteen months he was promoted again, to Able Seaman.
In August 1918, William was assigned to HMS Mantis, a river gunboat that patrolled the Tigris around Baghdad. He remained on board until the end of the year, when he was assigned to HMS Vivid, the Royal Naval Dockyard in Plymouth.
Over the next fifteen months, Able Seaman Green’s time was split between Plymouth and HMS Columbine, the naval base at Port Edgar on the Firth of Forth. It was when he was back in Devon, early in 1920, however, that he fell ill.
Able Seaman Green had contracted influenza, which had developed into pneumonia, and it was the combination of lung conditions that was to ultimately take his life. He passed away at the naval base on 5th March 1920, at the age of just 22 years old.
William Charles Green’s body was brought back to Somerset for burial. He was laid to rest in St James Cemetery, Bath, to be reunited with his parents when William Sr died in 1938 and Mary passed away in 1959.
Death and Service 