Scarborough seafarers lost at sea 1918 (from the book "Neath a Foreign Sky" by Paul Allen)
‘Those that go down to the sea in ships’
In Remembrance of;
- Senior Apprentice John Rowley Appleby
- Able Seaman Henry Owston
- Able Seaman John Owston
- Fisherman Wilfred Allen
- Private Charles Owston
- Private Henry Thomas Owston
- Second Hand William Hanley Cammish
- Second Lieutenant Fred Watkin Cowling
Whilst the guns had continued to roar across the length and breadth of the Western Front and the fortunes of the British Expeditionary Force in France and Belgium had been forever in the limelight, the war of the men of Britain’s Merchant Navy, the very lifeline of the British Isles, and the British Expeditionary Force in France and Flanders, had gone virtually unnoticed, even though they had been engaged in a more deadly dual battle of their own, with an enemy which, in the majority of cases, they had never seen, and with the pitiless sea itself.
Following the indecisive Battle of Jutland [May 31ST 1916] there had been no contact between the large battle fleets of Britain and Germany and on the surface Britain had seemingly still ruled the waves. However, below the high seas the direction of the war had begun to be governed, not by the huge battle fleets, which everyone had once thought would win the war at in a trice, but by the exploits of the diminutive German submarine, or ‘U Boat’.
Possessing just twenty eight boats by August 1914, the German Submarine force had begun its war under ‘cruiser rules’ which had stipulated that an attacker must give a merchant ship warning before sinking her and make provision for the escape of passengers and crew. This state of affairs had continued throughout 1914 and into 1915, when on the 7TH of May U –20 had sank without warning the 30,396 tons S.S. Lusitania with the loss of over one thousand of its passengers, including many women and children and 128 neutral Americans. The outcry following the atrocity had been enormous [despite it later being found that the vessel had also been carrying munitions] and had almost brought America into the war. Negotiations had smoothed over the troubled waters in the wake of the sinking; nevertheless, severe restrictions had been imposed on submarine operations. Despite the tight reigns, U-Boats had continued to sink around fifty to a hundred British Merchantmen during 1915.
By the end of 1916 the Germans had possessed over one hundred and thirty U-Boats, and from the first of February 1917 they had declared the waters around the British Isles, and most of the Mediterranean a ‘Speergebiet’, or prohibited area, whereby any ship, which entered by, made itself fair game for attack. Being an island nation much of nation’s food and raw materials had inevitably been imported and the steady loss of its merchant fleet had meant by the end of April Britain had had wheat stores to last just seven weeks, the president of the Board of Trade grimly foreseeing a complete breakdown in shipping before June of that year. The shipping situation had been so bad by this time it has been estimated the chances of an ocean steamer leaving the United Kingdom and returning safely had fallen to one in four. Most of the losses had occurred in the Western and south western approaches to the British Isles where the merchantmen [after remaining dispersed crossing the Atlantic] had been funnelled in towards the ports on the Clyde, and Liverpool, Bristol and the English Channel.
The worst of the sinkings had happened during the so-called ‘black fortnight’ of the 17TH—30TH of April 1917 when nearly 400,000 tons of British shipping had been lost to the U-Boats. By December the amount of tonnage lost had been a staggering 3,729,785 tons. Possessing no effective anti submarine weapons to combat the submersible menace, Britain had been virtually powerless amongst the colossal shipping losses attributed to the U-boats. On the other hand, the German Admiralty had become so confident with its campaign that they had placed no further orders for the construction of submersibles, firmly believing that Britain was close to the edge of suing for peace.
During January 1918 sugar had been rationed, and during April the British Government had issued forty million ration cards for meat and bacon [the so called ‘meat card], butter, cheese, and margarine [food card], which individuals had taken to their local butcher or grocer which had allowed them fifteen ounces of meat, five ounces of bacon, along with four ounces of butter or margarine per week. A miracle of organisation, the effects of rationing had been felt almost immediately and had been the end of the long queues of women lining Britain’s high streets waiting in hope of a decent piece of meat and other foodstuffs.
Salvation for the British public, and Merchant fleet had arrived with the adoption of the convoy system. A successful strategy during the Napoleonic wars, whereby a group of merchant vessels had been escorted by warships, during the 19TH Century the Admiralty had abandoned the idea, and between 1914-17 ships had been allowed to sail independently along recognised sea routes whilst the Royal Navy had conducted largely ineffective anti- submarine operations such as mining and patrolling.
The first outward-bound North Atlantic convoy had sailed on the 10TH of May 1917, and from June a regular system began of eight sailings every eight days, regular homeward bound convoys starting in August. The Admiralty erring on the side of caution had at first made the convoys smaller than necessary and had insisted on fast speeds and numerous escorts. The results had been dramatic. Of 5,090 merchant ships, which had sailed from British ports under the convoy system during 1917, only 63 had been lost. The main reason for the fall in casualties had been that under the convoy system the seas had been emptied of lone merchantmen, and vessels in convoy were far less likely to be attacked, but if they were targeted destroyers were on hand and other vessels might pick up the crews.
The success of the convoy system in deep water had forced the U-Boats to hunt elsewhere; in the coastal waters around Britain and during the early months of 1918 the convoying had begun in the shallower sea-lanes around the coast. Nevertheless, despite these measures, midnight ships had still continued to be sunk by enemy submarines, albeit on a much larger scale. ‘The Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday the 12TH of April 1918 had reported;
‘Bad week for U-Boats - The return issued on Wednesday night by the Secretary of the Admiralty, for the week ending Saturday midnight, April 6TH, shows that the total arrivals and sailings were 5,029, an increase of 234 compared with the previous week. The total losses last week were 4 large and two small British merchant ships as against 5 large, and 6 small merchant ships and 6 fishing vessels in the previous week. The total arrivals and sailings is the largest in any week this year’…
One of the four large British merchant ships [over 1,600 tons] to be sunk that week had been a grubby 2,904 tons collier that had been carrying a cargo of Northumbrian coal from Newcastle to Blaye, a port located on the Gironde Estuary. Built at Sunderland during1888, the Steamship Cyrene, owned by William Coupland & Co., and commanded by Captain C.W. Lawrenson, had been steaming independently southwards at about five knots, and had been some fifteen miles to the north of Bardsay Island by the early hours of Friday the fifth of April when she had been spotted by Oberleutnant Kurt Siewert through the periscope of his coastal minelaying submarine, UC-31. Unfortunately the view that had confronted Siewert through the lense of his periscope is not recorded. The scene may have been the same as that recalled by another U-Boat captain during the same war;
‘The steamer appeared close to us and looked colossal. I saw the captain walking on his bridge, a small whistle in his mouth. I saw the crew cleaning the deck forward…stand by for firing a torpedo! I called down to the control room… Fire!. A slight tremor went through the boat—the torpedo had gone… The death bringing shot was a true one, and the torpedo ran towards the doomed ship at high speed. I could follow its course exactly by the light streak of bubbles which was left in its wake’..
I saw that the bubble track of the torpedo had been discovered on the bridge of the steamer, as frightened arms pointed towards the water…Then a frightful explosion followed, and we were all thrown against one another by the concussion, and then, like Vulcan, huge and majestic, a column of water two hundred metres high and fifty metres broad, terrible in its beauty and power, shot up to the heavens’…[1]
Carrying a full cargo of coal, and with her back broken, the Cyrene had begun to founder almost immediately. Nevertheless, despite the appalling list of the stricken ship one of the two lifeboats had been launched and a number of Cyrene’s crew had managed to get away before the vessel had sank, taking her captain and a number of crew members with her.
Having sank within sight of the Caenarfonshire coast, one may well have imagine that the surviving members of the crew had made it to safety, this appears to have not been the case, and although the weather that cloudy and shower filled day had been described as ‘mild with a ‘light to moderate south easterly wind of around force five or six’, all except three of the handful of survivors had perished that night. Obviously cold and wet as a result of the sinking one can only assume that the unfortunate men had died, like so many shipwrecked seamen, as a result of exposure to the elements. [2]
Amongst the twenty-four men who had lost their lives with the Cyrene had been nineteen years old; Senior Apprentice Deck Officer John Rowley Appleby.
Born at Scarborough at No.56 Eastborough during 1899, ‘Jack’ had been the youngest of four children of Mary Jane, and Joseph Appleby, who had variously been employed in the town as an ‘attendant’ and a ‘general labourer’. [3]
Educated in Scarborough at St Mary’s Parish, and Friarage Board Schools, at the age of fourteen Jack and his father had travelled to the city of Sunderland, and the office of William Coupland & Co, where he had signed the papers of indenture [and paid a ‘premium of £60] bonding him to the company as an apprentice deck officer for the next five years of his life.
[Introduced by the Merchant Shipping Act of 1823, an act which had required all British vessels over eighty tons in weight to carry at least one apprentice, these youngsters had often treated as little more than unpaid skivvies, the life of an apprentice during those days had been harsh to say the least. In the interest of supposedly learning their trade literally from the ‘bottom upwards’ the apprentices had usually been given the worst jobs in the ship, such as cleaning and painting fuel tanks and bilges, and had also to study during the few moments of ‘smoko’, or free time which they had been allowed for the regular examinations they had to undertake to receive the certificates of competency necessary for a deck officer in the British Merchant Navy].
Appleby’s first trip to sea, like those of most ‘first trippers’ apprentices, had been made under sail and inevitably been a rude awakening after the shelter of home and family. Perhaps he had undergone the same feelings as one of his contemporaries, Apprentice F. Bullen…’How many lads are there to be found, I wonder, leaving good homes, such as the majority of sea apprentices do leave, who have ever washed a shirt or a plate, made a bed, or sewn on a button? Not one in a thousand. These things have always been done for them’…
Living and working conditions for British Merchant seamen at the turn of the century had been fairly dire [and would remain so until the end of the Second World War], and Appleby may have lived in conditions similar to those described by Bullen…’I was once on board a large Barque as A.B. [able seaman], where every apprentice [there were six] was on his first voyage…they were nice boys; but one day, when we had been a month at sea, I was invited into their house. And the first thing I said to my host was, I wonder what your poor mother would say if she could see this place! I t smelt; that rank aroma, which is the product of deficient ventilation, foul clothes, and stale food. caught me by the throat as I entered. The bunks of those young gentlemen were like the bins in a rag dealers shop, their chests were little, if any better, and there was a thriving population of vermin of various sorts. Not a knife, fork, spoon or mug had been washed since our departure from London’…
Despite the hardships Appleby had survived, and had passed all his examinations by April 1918 and had been expected to finish his apprenticeship with flying colours during September that year, he had unfortunately never completed. The news of their nineteen-year-old son’s death had reached Joseph and Mary Appleby during Saturday the 13TH of April [by this time the couple had been living in Scarborough at ‘Vernon Lodge’ in Vernon Place]. The tiding had been briefly reported in the ‘Town, Village, and District’ section of ‘The Yorkshire Herald’ of Tuesday the 16TH of April 1918.
‘Lost at sea - John Appleby, Vernon Lodge, Scarborough, is reported to have been lost at sea. He would have finished his apprenticeship in the Merchant Service in September. A brother has been a prisoner of war in Germany since the Jutland battle’…
The news of Jack’s loss had subsequently been reported in the ’The Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday the 19TH of April 1918, and although announcing…‘One brother drowned, another a prisoner’ the newspaper had reported no further information regarding the missing apprentice than that included in the ‘Herald’.
Lick the vast majority of seafarers who lose their lives at sea in times of war and peace, the remains of Jack Appleby had never been recovered, and as no further news of his demise had been forthcoming, the apprentice had eventually been listed for all time as ‘drowned at sea’. A year later, on the anniversary of Jack’s death, Joseph and Mary Appleby had inserted an epitaph to their lost son in the ‘In Memoriam’ section of ‘The Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday the fourth of April 1919;
‘In ever sweet memory of our beloved son John, son of Joseph and Mary Jane Appleby, Vernon Lodge, who perished at sea through submarine action April 5TH 1918…’Oh for the touch of a vanished hand. Only those who have lost can understand…Ever remembered by Mam, Dad, and family’…
During the 1920’s the Appleby’s home [Vernon Lodge] in Scarborough’s Vernon Place had been demolished to make way for an extension to the nearby Masonic Hall, which on the 19TH of June 1930 had been reopened by the Mayor of Scarborough, Sir Meredith Whittaker, as the town’s Public Library. By this time Joseph and Mary Jane Appleby had been residing at No. 4 Clifton Street, where, during Sunday the 21ST of April 1929 their youngest daughter, Alice Maud [born 1908] had tragically passed away at the age of twenty-one years. ‘Maudie’s’ remains had subsequently been interred in Scarborough’s Dean Road Cemetery [Section A, Border, Grave 12], the site being marked by a beautifully carved memorial bearing an inscription which says…’A daily thought, a silent sorrow’…
The memorial also contains an inscription dedicated to the name of the Appleby’s lost youngest son, John Rowley, who had ‘perished at sea on the 5TH of April 1918, aged 19 years…Love never faileth’….
John and ‘Maudie’ Appleby’s Scarborough born [1867] father, Joseph, had been the son of William and Hannah Appleby. He had died like his beloved daughter Maudie, at No.4 Clifton Street, on Friday the 17TH of April 1931 at the age of sixty-four years. His remains had been buried with those of his daughter during Tuesday the 21ST of April 1931. Mary Jane Appleby, the Scarborough born [1867] daughter of David and Mary Ann Rowley, had survived her husband by over thirty years and had died at her home at No.8 Princess Terrace on Tuesday the 27TH of June 1961 at the grand age of ninety four years. The mother of Jean, Joe, Florence, and Lillian Appleby, and a beloved grandmother and great grandmother, the remains of Mary Jane Appleby had been interred with those of her daughter and husband in the family plot in Dean Road Cemetery during the morning of Friday the 30TH of June 1961, following a service of remembrance at St Peter’s Roman Catholic Church.
Unlike his younger brother, the Appleby’s son Joseph [born 1897], despite numerous attempts upon his life by the Germans, had survived the war. Joe had enlisted into the Royal Navy during 1912 [Service Number J 18492] and by the out break of war had been serving in the 23,000 tons battleship H.M.S. Audacious and had been in the vessel when she had struck a mine off the coast of Northern Ireland. Having spent four hours in the water following the sinking of the Audacious Joe had been rescued to eventually serve in the ill fated Gallipoli campaign aboard the battleship H.M.S. Queen Elizabeth, in which he had served until the beginning of 1916 when he had transferred for training to the Royal Navy’s Torpedo School at Sheerness known as H.M.S. Actaeon.
Following his ‘stint’ at Actaeon, Joe had joined the brand new [1916] 1,025 tons destroyer H.M.S. Nomad, and had been in the ship during the Battle of Jutland when she had been sunk by enemy shellfire. Amongst the four officers and sixty eight ratings who had survived the sinking of the Nomad [the ship had gone into action on the 31ST of May with a complement of around 80 officers and men], Joe Appleby had eventually been rescued from the debris strewn, and oil coated water by the crew of a German destroyer and had spent the rest of the war in various prisoner of war camps in Germany. Once on enemy soil, Joe and his comrades had been put to work in various coal mines dotted around Germany, and it had been whilst working in a surface mine at Scafenburg, in Silesia, that he had witnessed the shooting of a comrade from the Nomad who had refused to work. The sailor, the twenty-one years old Michael John Murphy, had died from the effects of the shooting on the 31ST of August 1917. [4]
Having escaped from his captives shortly before the armistice, Joe Appleby and a fellow captive had made their way to neutral Holland where the two men had been kept under lock and key in a police station until they had been put on a ship that had returned them to Britain amongst a number of repatriated P.O.W.’s. Arriving at Hull Joe had apparently had been amongst the first ashore, and after a short time spent at the Barracks in Richmond he had been the first of Scarborough’s prisoners of war to return to the town.
During the same day that the Cyrene had been sunk, a further three ships had been attacked by a submarine or submarines in the Irish Sea. The British registered Steamship Clam [3,552 tons] had been struck by a mine and although severely damaged had managed to limp into Liverpool. The S.S. Zingara [3,463 tons] had also been fired on by an unseen U-Boat, the torpedo had fortunately missed its target and the ship had escaped unscathed. The third ship had been the British registered Saint Barchan, a 362 tons coastal trading vessel, which although having escaped this attack, had been sunk on the 21ST of October 1918, with the loss of eight lives, including the ship’s master. Whether these ships had been attacked by the same U-Boat that had sunk the Cyrene is not known. [5]
Commissioned into the German submarine fleet on the 2ND of September 1916, during her thirteen subsequent war patrols the 545 tons UC-31 had sank thirty-seven ships for a total of 53, 627 tons. She had been surrendered to the British on the 26TH of November 1918, and had been broken up in London’s Canning Town during 1922. Her intrepid Captain, Oberstleutnant Kurt Siewert, had also survived the war.
A month after the sinking of the Cyrene, during the evening of Friday the 17TH of May 1918, a slow moving convoy of twenty-eight merchant ships under the escort of
a group of warships including a screen of U.S. Navy cutters had been zigzagging their way eastwards from Gibraltar off the southern Spanish coast towards their destination, the port of Bizerte in Tunisia.
Unknown to the merchantmen and their escort the passage of the convoy had been followed by the watchful eyes of two U-Boats, the U-39 [commanded by Heinrich Metzger] and UB-50 [Franz Becker]. At about 18-15 that balmy evening, just off the port of Oran, Metzger had fired a torpedo at the British registered S.S. Sculptor, a 4,943 tons cargo ship, which although badly damaging the vessel had not sank her [the Sculptor had eventually been beached and written off as a total wreck, seven of her crew had also been lost]. Following the torpedoing of the Sculptor the warships had gone to action stations and gone to full speed in order to shepherd the convoy back together due to the ships having already scattered in panic. Whilst this had been going on
The convoy had eventually been gathered into some order and the ships had continued on their way and by 2016 that night had been fifty miles south east of the Cabo de Gata, when Becker had released a torpedo from one of the tubes of UB-50. Within seconds the torpedo, streaking through the crystal clear water at around a hundred miles per hour, had slammed into the side of her target, the 3,150 tons S.S. Mavisbrook. Owned by Miller & Richards Ltd, of London, the Hartlepool’s built collier had erupted in a huge explosion which had ripped through the vessel like the proverbial hot knife killing everyone who come within its path. Mortally wounded the ship had sunk within minutes.
Five oil soaked members of the Mavisbrook’s crew had eventually been plucked from the debris strewn water by the crew of the gunboat, U.S.S. Surveyor, whilst a further ten men had been rescued by other ships in the convoy but of the eighteen other crew members, including the ship’s forty five years old master, Captain Peter Hawick Gray, there had been no sign. The convoy had continued on its way throughout the remainder of that night during which time, despite being repeatedly depth charged by the American escorts, Becker had managed to put a torpedo into the side of British S.S. Elswick Grange, a 3,926 tons cargo vessel, which although severely damaged, had been able to reach Oran with the assistance of a tug [1crew member had been lost]. There had been no further attacks on the convoy after the 17TH of May and the remaining ships had eventually reached Bizerte on the 21ST of May 1918. Three days later ‘The Scarborough Mercury of Friday the 24TH of May had reported;
‘Young Scarborough sailor on sunken vessel - Harry Owston, son of Mrs. Owston, 25 St Mary’s Walk, was on a British Merchant vessel sunk about a week ago. Some of the men have been landed but he was not amongst tem. Naturally, therefore his relatives are very anxious. It is hoped, however, that there will be more survivors, and that he will be included in those landed elsewhere. Young Owston, who is a nephew of the lifeboat coxswain [John Owston Jnr.], was in Scarborough recently…He is a good swimmer’…
Amongst the eighteen missing men from the Mavisbrook, twenty-one years old Able Seaman Henry Owston had been born on the outskirts of Scarborough in the village of Seamer during 1897, and had been the youngest son of Isabella Harwood, and Henry Owston a ‘journeyman joiner’ by trade. [6]
By the turn of the century the Owston family had been living at N0.25 Roscoe Street, however, by 1905 the family had moved to No.25 St Mary’s Walk. Soon after the move Henry Owston had deserted his family leaving Isabella to bring her three children up alone. Aged eight by this time, Harry had been a pupil of the nearby Friarage Board School, where he had remained until the summer of 1910, when he had left the school to work in Scarborough as an errand boy until 1913, when like elder brother Jack before him he had become an apprentice deck officer in the Merchant Navy.
It has already been remarked that life in the British Merchant Navy during those days had been pitiful. During 1906 Lloyd George had pressed for reforms in the newly introduced Merchant Shipping Amendment Act, and at the time had damned the diet provided for merchant seamen as ‘meagre, monotonous, and miserable’.
The statutory scale subsequently introduced during that year had gone some way in alleviating the problem of poor feeding, nevertheless, the diet aboard ship had remained much the same as before, and young Owston would have been well acquainted with such delicacies as ‘cracker hash’ or sea pie [alternate layers of salt beef, peas, and powdered ship’s biscuits], ‘dandy funk’ [baked powdered biscuit and marmalade], and salt beef or tinned meat known as ‘Harriet Lane’ [after a murdered notorious ‘women of the night’ of London’s dockland].
A photograph reproduced in the ‘Scarborough Pictorial’ of Wednesday the 26TH of August 1914 shows Harry dressed in the uniform of an Apprentice Officer, however by 1918 he had been rated as a ‘sailor’ which may indicate that he had not completed his various examinations by this time and had continued his service in the M.N. as an ordinary seaman, a common practice amongst youngsters who had been keen on a life at sea.
No further news of the sinking of the Mavisbrook had been reported in the local newspapers throughout the remainder of the war, and Henry Owston had eventually been recorded as having ‘drowned at sea’. This may have been the end of the story of the young seafarer, however, shortly after the death of her son Isabel Owston had taken the extraordinary step of suing for compensation for the loss of her youngest son. The Scarborough Mercury of Friday the 15TH of November 1918 had reported;
‘Loss of a son—At the Scarborough County Court on Tuesday Mr. G.B. Black applied on behalf of Mrs Isabel H. Owston, residing at 25 St Mary’s Walk [in 2006 the Owston’s former home is named ‘Stella Maris’] for the ratification of an agreement under the workmen’s Compensation Act for the loss of her son, an able bodied seaman on a torpedoed steamship in May 1918. The insurance company had agreed to pay £165. The application was granted. I was stated this was the second son which Mrs. Owston had lost at sea through the war’…
The other son to be ‘lost at sea through the war’, had been Isabel’s eldest son; Able Seaman John Owston. Born in Scarborough during 1894, ‘Jack’ had also begun his seafaring career as an apprentice deck officer however, at the time of his loss, assumed to have been on the 13TH of November 1915, he had also been rated as an Able Seaman. Serving at this time in the Newcastle registered cargo vessel S.S. Shipcote, little is known regarding the loss of this ship, nevertheless, the Scarborough Mercury of Friday the 7TH of January 1916 had reported;
‘British ship overdue - Scarborough man on board - The Newcastle steamer Shipcote, which left Archangel for this country in mid November, is overdue, and there is anxiety for the safety of Mr.J.Owston, St Mary’s Walk, who is one of the crew.
The vessel may be ice locked; however, as others are stated to be, and while the Shipcote may be detained the men may be safe.
Communication between Russia and England has not of late been good, this has added to the difficulty of getting news.
Young Owston has not been long out of his apprenticeship, and has had some exciting experiences, having been o a torpedoed ship.
His many friends hope he will turn up safely. In the meantime there will be sympathy with his relatives in their suspense’…
Once again nothing further regarding the lost Owston had been reported in the local press until some while later, when, on Friday the 23RD of June 1916 the ‘Scarborough Mercury had reported;
‘Scarborough man lost on vessel which as been long overdue - The relatives of Mr. Jack Owston, 25 St Mary’s Walk, who has not been heard of for some months, have received an intimation from the owners of the S.S. Shipcote that the vessel must now be regarded as lost, and the crew given up. The Shipcote left Archangel n the 24TH of November for United Kingdom ports and has not since been heard of. There will be much sympathy for the Owston’s relatives, who have been kept in suspense as to his fate for many weeks. He maintained the family tradition in adopting a seafaring career, for his mother, Mrs Isabel Owston, has in her possession indentures of several generations of Harwood’s and on the Owston side there is a long connection with the sea [Jack and Harry had been the nephews of Scarborough lifeboat’s legendary coxswain, John Owston]. The late Jack Owston served his apprenticeship with Messrs George Pyman in the Rosebank and was washed overboard in his apprenticeship, he was saved however. In his second year he was several weeks in hospital after having a foot jammed in the steering gear. On another voyage his vessel ad to leave him at Newport News [U.S.A.] with fever. In the Sandsend, the sister ship to the Rosebank, he experienced a very heavy gale and a member of the crew describes how Jack was washed round the deck and lifted by a great wave onto the bridge. The Shipcote was probably torpedoed, although she may have been crushed in the ice’…
Shortly after Jack’s death Isabel had sued for compensation for his loss on the grounds that he had been her family’s main breadwinner. The case had been featured under the heading of ‘loss of Scarborough seaman—compensation award’, in the ‘Scarborough Mercury of Friday the 15TH of December 1916;
‘Before his Honour Judge Lock, at the Scarborough County Court on Tuesday, an application was made by Mr G.B. Black, solicitor, on behalf of Mrs Isabel Owston, 25 St Mary’s Walk, Scarborough. Her case was under the Compensation Act. Mrs Owston’s son John Owston, was an able seaman on the vessel Shipcote, which had not been heard of since November 1915, and which was ultimately given up as lost. He received £8-10s a month [pay] and made an allotment to his mother of £4 5s per month. In addition, he paid he certain other monies at the end of each voyage. He was 23 years of age. The owners had paid the allotment up to May 1916. There were three other children working. Mrs Owston was separated from her husband—there were maintenance arrears. She was living in a house, which the son, John Owston, desired her to take, e stating he would pay the rent when he came back from his voyage. ‘He had been very god to her’ said Mr Black. Mrs Owston had an injury in August 1914.She might get a slight pension from the government.
The owners of the Shipcote had paid into court the sum of £142, having already paid her £8, and the application was for the allotment, and payment to her of the amount of £142…This was granted’…
No further information regarding the fate of John and Harry Owston had been received. Amongst 17,000 Merchant seamen and fishermen who lost their lives during the Great War who possess no known graves but the sea, their names, and that of John Rowley Appleby, had been included on the Tower Hill Memorial. Located on London’s Tower Hill on the south side of the garden of Trinity Square, the memorial, built of Portland Stone and consisting of a ‘vaulted corridor’ had been designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, and had been unveiled by Her Majesty Queen Mary on the 12TH of December 1928.
[At the end of the Second World War a sunken garden had been attached to the Tower Hill Memorial. The bronze plaques attached to the gardens surrounding wall commemorate a further 32,000 Merchant seamen and fishermen [including the author’s Great uncle, Wilfred Allen, a Scarborough born fisherman who had lost his life due to enemy action at the age of forty one on the 5TH of June 1944, whilst working off the coast of Scotland in the Steam Trawler Noreen Mary. Wilf is commemorated on Panel 127 of the Memorial] who had lost their lives during that conflict.
By the end of the war Isabel Owston had been residing in Scarborough at No.5 Trinity House Flats in St Sepulchre Street. However by the end of the Second World War she had been living with her daughters Isabel Harwood Horsman, and Ivy Mary Grassam, on Scarborough’s South Cliff, at No.7 Royal Crescent where she had passed away at the age of eighty-five during Sunday the 11TH of April 1948, having survived her sons by almost thirty years. The remains of Isabel Owston had duly been interred in Scarborough’s Woodlands Cemetery during Wednesday the 14TH of April in Section D, Row 6, Grave 20, sadly her final resting place is not marked.
Apart from John and Henry Owston, Scarborough’s Oliver’s Mount Memorial also commemorates: TR5/90758 Private Charles Owston. Born on Scarborough during 1899 ‘Charley’ had been the only child of Elizabeth and Charles Owston who had been residing in the town at No.97 Garfield Road at the time of their son’s death at the age of nineteen, on the 13TH of November 1917. Attached to the 7TH battalion of the Training Reserve Charlie Owston had been knocked down three days earlier by a speeding ‘joy rider’ whilst returning with a friend, Private Garvey, to their training camp at Rugeley, following an afternoon’s jaunt to Stafford. The remains of Private Owston had eventually been returned to Scarborough, where they had been interred, with full military honours, in Section F, Border, Grave 14, of Manor Road Cemetery [Charlie Owston’s final resting place is listed as a war grave. A memorial commemorates the young soldier, and his parents, Elizabeth Owston who had died on the 26TH of February 1962, at the age of 85 years. Charles Owston had died shortly after his wife at 88 years on the 30TH of October 196. Their remains had been interred with those of their son on the 1ST of March and 2ND of November 1962 respectively.
The Owston’s memorial also bears an inscription dedicated to their beloved ‘Charley’ - ‘Oh not in cruelty; nor in wrath. The reaper came that day. Twas an angel visited the green earth and took our flower away’…
17413 Private Henry Thomas Owston. Also a native of Scarborough, Harry had been born in the town during 1878, and had been the son of Hannah Elizabeth and Thomas Owston, an ‘insurance agent’ by profession, who had been living in Scarborough at No.114 Hoxton Road at the time of Harry’s death on the 9TH of August 1916. A Tailor by trade, Harry had enlisted in the army at Harrogate during 1915 and had initially served with ‘D’ Company of the 12TH [Service] Battalion of the Prince of Wales’s Own [West Yorkshire Regiment]. However, during August 1916 he had been attached to the Territorial Force 1ST/6TH Battalion of the regiment, which had been serving in the dreaded Leipzig Salient of the Somme Sector. Killed by shellfire during the ninth, Owston’s remains had been taken to a burial ground located near the village of Authuile, where they had been interred in section K, Grave 5. Although reported, in name only, in ‘Scarboro Casualties’ of the Mercury of Friday the 25TH of August, no further information regarding Harry had been relayed by the newspaper.
All four of the Owston’s, and John Appleby, had been former members of the congregation of St Sepulchre Street Primitive Methodist Chapel and had been amongst the thirty nine fallen members of the chapel who had been commemorated on a bronze tablet which had formed the chapel’s war memorial. Set within a frame of carved oak surmounted by a crown and laurel wreath in the centre of which had stood a cross in carved oak, beneath which had been the familiar inscription; ‘they were a wall unto us by night and by day’, the monument, described as being ‘beautiful’ and a ‘handsome and fitting memorial’, had been constructed by Scarborough master craftsman, Albert E. Horsley [who had lost a brother, Private James Sidney Horsley, to the war] and had been unveiled by Scarborough’s Mayor, Councillor George Whitfield, during the afternoon of Sunday June the 25TH 1922, and had graced the porch of the chapel for many years until the demise of the Chapel during the late 1960’s, when the building, once located on the corner of St Sepulchre Street and Springfield, had been demolished to make way for housing. Alas, by 2006 the whereabouts of the Chapel’s memorial is not known.
Eleven days after the sinking of the Mavisbrook, on Tuesday the 28TH of May 1918, a convoy of merchant vessels escorted by a screen of destroyers, had been steaming southwards from their assembly point in the port of Leith down the east coast of England. Destined for the Thames Estuary, by 1-30 that afternoon the ships had reached Flamborough Head and had been unaware that their passage was being observed by the vigilant eyes of Oberstleutnant Walter Schmitz, the thirty years old captain of the German coastal mine laying submarine, UC-75.
Schmitz had left his base at Zeebrugge six days earlier and had taken his 410 tons boat, along with his thirty man crew to the east coast of Yorkshire with the mission of laying mines and then attack any allied shipping he had subsequently encountered. By the twenty eighth Schmitz had made his way to Flamborough Head, where he had cruised about waiting for prey. His first victim in the area had been the Coronation, a nineteen tons wooden fishing vessel which he had ordered to stop and had forced her crew to abandon their vessel in the ship’s small boat, before sinking her with fire from his deck gun. This ‘first kill’ had taken place during the morning of the twenty eighth. Oblivious to the happenings of a few hours before the southbound convoy had steamed right into UB-75’s path, ad soon Schmitz had been manoeuvring his boat into a suitable position for attack.
At the head of the convoy had been His Majesty’s Trawler Dirk. Weighing around one hundred and eighty tons, 38.17 metres in length by 5.94 metres wide, the Dirk had originally been built during 1909 at Bowling [a village near Glasgow] for David MacBrane Ltd, and had spent some of her peacetime life in the Scottish fishing trade until her conversion into an inter-isle ferry. Stationed at Tobemory she had ran for a number of years between Oban and the islands of Coll, Tiree, and Bunessan, making the outward passage on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from Tobemory, returning from Bunessan [a hamlet on the Ross of Mull] on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Requisitioned by the Admiralty during 1917, the Dirk had been commissioned into the Royal Navy on the 19TH of September as minesweeper H.M. Trawler Dirk [pendant Number F.Y.1649] and had been armed with one twelve pounder, and one six pounder Quick Firing guns.
A few seconds after one thirty that afternoon, Schmitz, by this time in perfect firing position, had given the ordered to launch a single torpedo from UB-75’s port tube. Travelling at over ninety miles per hour the missile had soon been streaking towards its unsuspecting target and it hadn’t been until a split second before impact with the trawler that anyone had spotted the tell tale wake from the torpedo…far too late to take avoiding action. The torpedo had struck the Dirk amidships shattering the vessels middle hull and upper works, including the ship’s magazine holding the ship’s ammunition, thus causing the mortally wounded vessel to erupt in a huge fireball explosion.
Shattered beyond redemption, the remains of the trawler had begun to list dangerously to starboard, the movement being accentuated by the vessel’s unusually tall funnel, and barely two minutes after she had been struck the vessel had foundered leaving just two oil soaked survivors of her sinking to be plucked out of the oil soaked and debris littered sea by one of the escorting destroyers.
Seemingly unperturbed by the loss of the Dirk the convoy had continued on its way southwards as if nothing had happened. Nevertheless, five minutes after the Dirk had disappeared beneath the North Sea the Grangemouth registered British cargo vessel, S.S. Caroline [679tons] had been in collision with the London registered S.S. Merida. Carrying a cargo of empty ‘Camp Coffee’ and port bottles, and commanded by Captain J.C. Kidd, the Caroline had also soon foundered, fortunately, all of her crew of nineteen had eventually been rescued. [7]
News of the Dirk’s sinking had initially been transmitted to Naval Headquarters at Immingham, the telegram had read…
‘H.M.S. Petrel H.M.S. Bat, H.M.S. Ouse and escort force T.U.26 arrived 0600 convoy correct except British S.S. Caroline sunk in collision at 0135 in Lat 54 6 N Long. 0 4 E all hands saved.
Auxiliary Patrol Vessel Dirk leading convoy sunk probably by torpedo 0130 same position. 2 survivors from Dirk’…[8]
Of the remainder of Dirk’s crew there had been no sign, the missing twenty men, including the ship’s captain, Temporary Lieutenant James William Green, Royal Naval Reserve, eventually being recorded as ‘missing, presumed drowned’. Amongst them had been twenty four years old Royal Naval Reservist;
5604 DA Second Hand William Hanley Cammish. Born in Scarborough on the 19TH of January 1894, at No.3 Custom House Steps, ‘Billy’ had been the youngest son of Esther and fisherman, Jacob Cammish, who had been residing in the ‘bottom end’ of the town during 1918 at No.53 Quay Street. [9]
A pupil of the nearby St Thomas’s Parish School until the age of six, Billy had subsequently transferred to the ‘big school up’t hill’ [Friarage Board School], where he had remained until the statutory age of thirteen, when he had left the school to inevitably follow in the foot steps of many Cammish’s before him, into the then thriving Scarborough fishing trade.
By the outbreak of war the twenty years old Billy Cammish had worked in a number of the town’s sailing and steam fishing vessels, however, by the summer of 1914 he had been working in the Otter, a steam trawler owned by Sellers and Sons of Scarborough, and skippered by Robert ‘Bob’ Watson. Weighing around 150 tons, the Otter had looked like any trawler of the day, however, her claim to fame had been she had been the first of Scarborough’s fleet to use the ‘otter trawl’ a trawl net whose mouth had been held open by two large weighted boards known as ‘Otter Boards’, which had also allowed the net’s mouth to open wider, and seen the demise of the more cumbersome traditional beam trawl. [10]
Amongst a large number of Scarborough fishermen who had journeyed to North Shields during 1915to enlist for war service with the Royal Naval Reserve, Billy had enrolled into the service on the 9TH of April during that year and had subsequently served in a number of R.N.R. manned minesweepers and patrol vessels, until joining the Dirk at Shields during the winter of 1917.
Married in Scarborough’s St Mary’s Parish Church on Monday the 18TH of June 1917 to Eliza Cowling, the thirty two years old youngest daughter of Ruth, and fisherman Richard ‘Cesh’ Cowling, the couple eventually residing in the ‘old town’ at No.8 Dog and Duck Lane, Sandside, where, on the 29TH of May 1918, Eliza, by this time expecting the couple’s first child [a daughter, Wilfreda, would shortly be born during December 1918], had received a telegram from the Admiralty;
‘Madam’,
‘It is my painful duty to inform you that telegraphic information has been received in this department to the effect that William Hanley Cammish, official number 5604 D.A., who was serving on board H.M. Auxiliary Patrol Vessel ‘Dirk’ when that vessel was sunk on the 28TH instant, was not amongst the survivors landed, ad in these circumstances it is feared that he must be regarded as having lost his life…I am your obedient servant’…[11]
Word of his son’s probable loss had soon reached Jacob Cammish, who by 1918 had become a widower, living at No.44 Quay Street. Jacob had subsequently reported Billy’s loss to the news office of ‘The Scarborough Mercury’, which had reported the seaman’s loss in a casualty list, which had appeared in the ‘Mercury’ of Friday the 7TH of June 1918;
‘Scarborough seaman missing - Mr. Jacob Cammish, the caretaker at the fish pier, has received news that his youngest son, William, is returned as missing since the 28TH of May. William Cammish, who is 24 years of age, and was married about twelve months ago, formerly worked on trawlers sailing out of Scarborough, but for the last three years he has been on Admiralty service, minesweeping, and otherwise. As recently as two or three weeks ago he was in the town on the occasion of a visit of the vessel on which he was serving, and he was expected in Scarborough again very shortly in order to sit for his Masters certificate. He obtained his mate’s certificate a year ago. The missing man was one of three brothers in the services, one being now in France and the other lying in hospital at Ipswich, where he has undergone several operations and suffered the loss of an arm by amputation’…
Inevitably, there had been no further news of the missing Billy Cammish and at the end of the war his name, along with those of twenty officers and men of the Dirk had been commemorated on Panel 30 of the Chatham Naval Memorial, in Kent. This memorial, one of three naval memorials [Plymouth, Portsmouth, and Chatham] commemorating missing Royal Naval personnel, had been designed by Sir Robert Lorimer had originally carried the names of over eight thousand Great War casualties, however, following the Second World war, the Chatham Memorial had been extended to accommodate the names of over 10,000 naval casualties of that war, who posses no known graves but the sea.
In Scarborough, apart form the Oliver’s’ Mount Memorial, Billy’s name had been included on a memorial in St Thomas’s Parish Church which had contained the names of sixty two former members of the church who had lost their lives on active service between 1914 and 1918. This stone tablet memorial can now be found in St Mary’s Parish Church, near to the church’s large ‘Roll of Honour’ located on the north interior wall of the church.
The missing seaman’s name can also be found in Scarborough’s Manor Road Cemetery on a gravestone located in section N, Row 17, Grave 0/0, which also commemorates his father, Jacob ‘Cesh’ Cammish, who had died at the age of sixty nine years on the 18TH of August 1927, and elder brother Robert. A former Lance Bombardier in the Royal Field Artillery [Regimental Number 27343], ‘Bob’ Cammish had been badly affected by gas during 1917 and had never regained a reasonable state of health, having passed away prematurely at the age of forty-one years, on the 2ND of December 1927. This memorial also bears the name of Billy Cammish’s aunt and ‘faithful friend’, Mary Robinson, who had died at the age of sixty on the 9TH of November 1926, and that of the Cammish’s grand daughter Elizabeth Cammish Rowntree, the daughter of Jacob Cammish, and Mary Hannah Rowntree who had passed away at the age of nineteen at her home at No.9 hope Street on Tuesday the 20TH of January 1935.
[standing alongside this memorial [Section N, Row 17, Grave 0/1] another gravestone commemorates Billy’s brother Harry, who had been drowned at the age of seven years in Scarborough harbour during the evening of the 22ND of December 1903, whilst ‘playing with friends’. Also included is the name of his mother Esther Cammish, who had died at her home at No.1 Custom House Steps, during Wednesday the 8TH of August 1906, at the age of forty six years. The memorial also remembers two other Cammish children, George who had died in infancy, and Florence Mary, who had passed away at the age of five on the 30TH of December 1906].
Formerly employed by the Scarborough Fish Selling Company, Billy’s eldest brother, Jacob Rowntree Cammish, had also served during the war with the Royal Field Artillery. Promoted to Sergeant by 1917, he had been badly wounded during October 1917 whilst taking part in the Third Battle of Ypres [Passchendaele] so badly that his right arm had had to be amputated. Despite this he had survived the war to return to Scarborough.
On the anniversary of her husband’s death, Eliza Cammish, by this time residing with her father at No.53 Quay Street, had dedicated an epitaph to the memory of her beloved Billy, it had appeared in the ‘In Memoriam’ section of ‘The Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday the 30TH of May 1919;
‘Cammish—‘In loving memory of my dear husband William Stanley Cammish, lost at sea on H.M.A.P.V. Dirk, May 28TH 1918…I miss you God knows and morn you unseen and think of the memories of days might have been;
But unknown to the world you stand by my side and whisper these words; Death does not divide…from his loving wife and baby Wilfreda’…
The sole Scarborough casualty of the Great War to be killed whilst on active service within earshot of the town of his birth, the remains of Billy Cammish had never been recovered, the inevitable fate of thousands of shipwrecked seamen who have been ‘lost’ in war and in peace. In all probability he had gone down with the Dirk. If this is the case, his final resting place is located in about 48 metres of water about nine nautical miles east by south of Flamborough Head, where the barnacled remains of the Dirk, according to Young; ‘lies on a seabed of dirty sand, mud, gravel, and stones’. Standing some 3.5.metres in height, her bows and stern are [in 20003] reportedly ‘intact but her amidships is collapsed and broken up’. [12]
Not too far away from the Dirk [6.56 nautical miles from Flamborough Head] lie the coral encrusted remains of the S.S. Caroline. According to Young, she sits ‘on a seabed of coarse sand, small pebbles, mud, and broken black shells, and is intact and in an upright position’. Around the wreck can also be found many dozens of empty port and Camp Coffee bottles, her final cargo.
Although she had been depth charged following the loss of the Dirk, the submarine that had claimed William Hanley Cammish’s life, the UC-75, had lived to fight another day. However, three days later, on the 31ST of May 1918 Schmitz had spotted another convoy to the south of Flamborough Head and whilst he had been bringing his boat to the surface she had been rammed by the British steamer Blaydonian. With her stern badly bent, her conning tower hatch damaged, and her hydroplanes out of action, the submarine had rapidly begun to fill with water. Deciding to bring his vessel to the surface, Schmitz’s boat had consequently been rammed by the old [1897] 370 tons British destroyer H.M.S. Fairy [commanded by Lieutenant G.H. Barnish], which had swung around to have another crack at the submarine. Deciding at this point to abandon ship, Schmitz had ordered his crew on deck and had ordered the opening of the boats vents and deck hatches in preparation to scuttling his vessel.
The British had later reported crewmen of UC-75 had opened fired on the destroyer with the submarine’s deck gun, a claim later refuted by Schmitz. Nevertheless, the Fairy had consequently opened fire on the sinking UC-75 with the ship’s eight pounder, whilst the destroyer had steamed full ahead at the submarine.
The resulting collision had caused the Fairy’s bows to crumple back as far as the ships bridge, the submarine’s casing being torn open from the conning tower to the boat’s deck gun. Almost immediately UC-75 had begun to sink, and it had been reported that two of her crew had leapt onto the forecastle of the fairy and just stand with their hands up. Schmitz along with twelve of his men had eventually been rescued from the sea; nevertheless, nineteen of the UC-75 ‘s crew had perished as a result of the extraordinary episode off Flamborough Head during May 1918. Badly damaged by the collision with the U- Boat, H.M.S. Fairy had sank within an hour of the second ramming, the crew of the destroyer, and thirteen survivors of UC-75 being plucked from the sea by a trawler.
[Commissioned into the German submarine fleet on the 6TH of December 1916, the UC-75 had been a Type UC 2 coastal mine laying submarine. With a length of 50.45 metres, and width of 5.22 metres, UC-75 had been capable of a speed of around 11.8 knots and an operational range of 10,420 miles. Equipped to carrying forty-one mines, she had also been armed with one 88mm deck gun, and three torpedo tubes [two in the bows and one in her stern]. The wreck of UC-75 is located some 13.20 miles south south east of Flamborough Head, and lies on a bed of sand, mud, gravel, small pebbles, and broken shells in a depth of around 31 metres. Reportedly ‘largely intact’
she sits upright, and although an officially designated war grave, Young reports her deck gun, torpedo tubes, and bronze propellers as having been ‘salvaged’].
One of a handful of Scarborough’s World War One casualties to be commemorated on more than one memorial in the town’s cemeteries, Billy Cammish’s name can also be found on a monument in Manor Road Cemetery [Section M, Row 4, Grave 36], which also commemorates his former mother in law, Ruth Cowling, who had died at her home at No.54 Quay Street, on Saturday the 19TH of February 1910, at the age of 49 years, and father in law Richard ‘Cesh’ Cowling, who had subsequently passed away in Scarborough at the age of seventy six years on Friday the 16TH of April 1937, at No.129 Longwestgate, the home of his youngest daughter, and Billy’s widow, Eliza Cammish. [7]
This memorial also commemorates Billy’s brother in law;
Second Lieutenant Frederick Watkin Cowling. Also born in Scarborough, on the 31ST of January 1887, at No.5 Wharton’s Yard, Sandside, Fred had been the eldest son of Ruth [formerly Hunter] and fisherman, Richard ‘Cesh’ Cowling, who had been residing in Scarborough at No 44 Quay Street during 1918. [13]
Another pupil of St Thomas’s, and Friarage Schools, Fred had left school during 1900, at the age of thirteen, to become an errand boy for local fish seller and smack owner, Thomas Sellers. However, during the ensuing years Fred had become a ‘journeyman baker’ and as such had worked in the Ferryhill area of County Durham. Nevertheless, at the beginning of January 1909, by this time aged twenty one, he had returned to Scarborough, where he had been married on the 27TH of January in Aberdeen Walk’s Jubilee Primitive Methodist Chapel, to Lillie Bell the twenty three years old Middlesbrough born daughter Sarah Ann, and ‘journeyman stonemason’ Thomas Bell [deceased], of No.95 Westborough, Scarborough.
Soon after their wedding the Cowling’s had returned to live in Bead Terrace at Ferryhill were their children, Lillie and Arthur Watkin Cowling, had been born [1910 and 1912 respectively]. Whilst still living in this area Fred’s wife had tragically passed away at the age of twenty-eight years. Soon after Lillie’s death Fred had returned to Scarborough with his two young children to live with his parents at No.44 Quay Street.
Cowling had enlisted into the army at Scarborough’s Castle Road Court House during September 1914 and had initially served as a Private [Regimental Number 4/2039] in the Territorial Force’s 2ND/4TH Battalion of the Northumberland Fusiliers, which had been attached to the 188TH Brigade of the 63RD [2ND Northumbrian] Division. Cowling had remained on ‘Home Service’ with this unit until its disbandment during July 1916, when he had been transferred to the 1ST/5TH Battalion of the Durham Light Infantry, which had been serving in the Somme Sector of the Western Front with the 151ST Brigade of the veteran 50TH[Northumbrian] Division.
Involved in most of the subsequent major operations in France and Belgium, by the beginning of 1918 the former fish merchant’s errand boy had worked his way through the ranks to the exalted rank of Sergeant. Recommended for officer training during February, Cowling had subsequently been posted back to Britain, where he had joined the 11TH Officer Training Battalion, which had been based at Pirbright Camp, in Surrey.
After four and a half months of officer training, Fred had been ‘gazetted’ to the rank of Temporary Second Lieutenant, and after a short period of leave in Scarborough he had returned to France at the beginning of July 1918. Shortly after he had rejoined his old unit [16TH of July], the sorely depleted and exhausted 1ST/5TH D.L.I. had been reduced to cadre strength, the remains of the unit being transferred to the 117TH Brigade of the 39TH Division, a veteran ‘New Army’ formation which had lost so many men during the German Spring Offensive that it had never been reconstituted as a fighting force, being relegated to training newly arrived American soldiers in the arts of trench warfare.
Although recorded as having been serving with the 1ST/5TH D.L.I. at the time of his death, it is apparent that Cowling could not have served in action with this unit during the later stages of the war. To find the unit he had actually served with at this time has proved impossibility. I am therefore assuming that by September 1918 Fred had been serving with the 1ST/9TH Battalion of the D.L.I., a Pioneer Battalion which had been attached to the Territorial Force 62ND [2ND West Riding] Division.
By mid September 1918 the 62ND Division had been in its old stomping ground, the Cambrai Sector, where on the 12TH of September, Fred Cowling had taken part in the capture of the heavily fortified village of Havrincourt, an operation that had led to Cowling being awarded with a Military Cross. Two weeks later Cowling had taken part in the capture of the villages of Marcoing and Masnieres, both important crossing points of the St Quentin Canal.
The Battle of the Canal Du Nord had followed [27TH of September—1ST of October], during which Cowling had again seen much heavy fighting. At the beginning of October [9TH—12TH], he had taken part in the pursuit to the Selle, and had been preparing to take part in the crossing of the river, when on Friday the 18TH of October Fred Cowling had been grievously wounded by enemy shellfire. Despite being evacuated to a Casualty Clearing Station at nearby Carnieres, Fred had died from the effects of his injuries during Sunday the 20TH of October 1918.
Richard Cowling had learned of his son’s death towards the end of October 1918, and with only ten days to go before the Armistice his name had been included in a casualty list, which had appeared in ‘The Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday the 1ST of November 1918;
‘Officer dies of wounds - Mr. R. Cowling, 44 Quay Street, has been officially notified that his eldest son, Second Lieut. F.W. Cowling died of wounds on the 20TH of October, in France. He was 32 years of age, and a widower. Two children are left. Second Lieut. Cowling joined the forces a month after war broke out. Served two years in France in the Northumberland Fusiliers, ad got a commission in May of this year in the 5TH D.L.I., only going out to France again in June. He was shortly expected on leave’…
The remains of Lieutenant Cowling had been interred in a burial ground attached to the Casualty Clearing Station at Carnieres, which had been located in the village’s Communal Cemetery. Constructed by units of the Guards Division following the capture of the village on the 10TH of October 1918, this cemetery, now known as ‘Carnieres Communal Cemetery Extension’ contains the graves of 54 casualties of the fighting which had taken place around the village during October 1918.
The story of Fred Cowling could have ended there, however, a year after his death the following had appeared in ‘The Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday the 24TH of October 1919;
‘Next of Kin - Military Cross sent to Scarborough schoolboy - His late father’s heroism - The Military Cross awarded to his late father, 2ND Lieutenant Frederick Watkin Cowling, 5TH Battalion Durham Light Infantry, as been forwarded to Arthur Watkin Cowling, a seven years old scholar of Friarage School, who lives with his grandfather, Mr Richard Cowling, at No.44 Quay Street.
The following is the official account of the conduct for which the award was made: ‘For great gallantry in action at Havrincourt 12TH—13TH September 1918. H pressed on with his platoon through intense machine gun fire and in spite of his own losses inflicted severe casualties on the enemy. With a few men he rushed, and captured a machine gun post, drove off the enemy, and counter attacked, personally carrying a wounded man to a place of safety’…
2ND Lieutenant Cowling was killed not long before the Armistice, and his Lieut. Colonel, in a letter accompanying the Military Cross expresses his regret that the gallant officer did not survive to receive the Cross from the King’…
[Although registered as having married during the March Quarter of 1909, the author has been unable, despite extensive enquiries, to find any children with the names of Lillian and Arthur Watkin Cowling who had been registered as having been born between that year and 1918. One is left to assume that perhaps Fred’s two children had been adopted?].
Like that of his brother in law Billy Cammish, the name of Fred Cowling is also commemorated on the St Thomas’s War Memorial, whilst the gravestone commemorating his name in Manor Road Cemetery also bears the following inscription:
‘In my hand no price I bring, simply to the cross I cling’…
[1] Quoted from ‘U-Boat attack, 1916’ [published 1919], the memoirs of Adolf K.G.E. von Spiegel the commanding officer of a U-Boat during the Great War; courtesy of Eyewitnesses to history, www eyewitnesstohistory.com [1997].
[2] The author wishes to thank Mr. Ian McGregor of the Archives Department of the Meteorological Office for his assistance with the gathering of information regarding the state of the weather in the Irish Sea on the 5TH of April 1918
[3] Married at St Mary’s Parish Church on the 16TH of November 1892, by the time of the 1901 Census the Appleby’s had been residing in Scarborough at No.56 Eastborough. The family had consisted of Joseph 34 years of age, employed as a ‘general labourer’, Mary Jane [formerly Rowley], 33years, Jane Elizabeth, 7years [baptised at St Mary’s on the 4TH of March 1894], Florence Mary, 5years[bapt. June 2ND 1895], Joseph, 4 years, [bapt. April 8TH 1897], and John R., aged 2 years [bapt 9TH February 1899]. All had been born at Scarborough.
[During the post war years No.56 Eastborough had become the family home of Mr. Edmund, and Florence Hodgkins, however, during the 1930’s the shop underneath had been taken over by ‘angling specialist’, Harold F. Pritchards, and for over sixty years Pritchard’s, a shop where ‘fishing tackle of every description’ and the bait to go with it had been the hub of angling in Scarborough until the 1990’s. The premises are now [2006] trading as ‘G.B. Angling’.
[4] The records of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission show that K/23371 Stoker First Class Michael John Murphy, the son of Mr. T. Murphy of 13, Brycogh Road, Bridgend Glamorganshire, had died on the 31ST of August 1917, and although initially buried in Lamsdorf Prisoner of War Cemetery located in Silesia, after the war his remains had be re-interred in Plot 2, Row H, Grave 1, in Berlin’s South-Western Cemetery.
[5] The author wishes to express his gratitude to National Maritime Museum Librarian Miss Dunia Garcia Ontiveros, for her assistance with the gathering of information regarding the shipping losses of the 5TH of April 1918.
[6] At the time of the 1901 Census of Scarborough the Owston’s had been residing in the town at No.25 Roscoe Street, the family had consisted of Henry, 33years of age, ‘joiner journeyman, Isabel, 34 years, daughter Isabel Harwood, 8 years, sons John 7 years, and Henry, 4 years of age, all, except Henry Jnr., had been born in Scarborough.
[7] The two survivors of the sinking of the Dirk had been Temporary Sub Lieutenant Leonard Kaye Perring, Royal Naval Reserve, and Telegraphist Alfred James Raison, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. Seven other crewmen had been fortunate enough to be on leave at the time of the vessel’s loss.
[8] Extracted from file ADM 1/8526/160 belonging to the National Archives at Kew.
[9] Jacob Cammish and Esther Rowntree had been married at Scarborough’s St Mary’s Parish Church on the 28TH of October 1884. By the time of the 1901 Census their family had still been residing in Scarborough at No.1 Custom House Steps and had consisted of; Jacob, aged 41 years, born Scarborough, employed as a ‘docks labourer’, Esther, 37 years, born York, Jacob Rowntree, son, 17 years, employed as a ‘gashouse labourer’, Robert, 14 years, ‘grocers apprentice’, William H., 11 years,
Harry, 4 years, and Violet Muriel aged two years. All the children had been born in Scarborough.
[10] The trawler Otter had been amongst eleven Scarborough fishing vessels which had become victims of German ‘frightfulness’ during September 1916 when they had been captured whilst fishing about ten miles north-north east of Whitby. Their crews, consisting of around a hundred men, had subsequently been ordered to leave their vessels before being sunk by gunfire from an unidentified German U-Boat. Although none of the Scarborough men had been lost during the incident, they had nevertheless lost their livelihoods, the town losing most of its trawler fleet.
[11] Shipwrecks of the East Coast Vol.2 [1918-2003]; Ron Young; Tempus; 2004.
[12] Eliza Cammish had lived in this house during 1937 with William Henry, and Rachel Eves, along with niece and nephew Arthur and Lillie Cowling the orphaned children of her brother, Second Lieutenant Frederick Watkin Cowling. She had continued to live there with daughter Wilfreda Hanley [formerly Cammish], and her husband Leonard Smith. Only two Eliza Cammish’s are recorded, as having died the Scarborough area between the 1950’s and 2006, neither appear to have been Billy Cammish’s widow. His daughter, Wilfreda Hanley Smith, the widow of Len and mother of Susan, Lynn, Kay, and the late Joanne, had died at the age of 87 years on Wednesday the 21ST of December 2005 [her remains had been cremated at Woodlands during the morning of Friday the 30TH of December 2005].
[13] Married in Scarborough during 1883, by the time of the 1901 Census Ruth and Richard Cowling had been residing in the town at No.54 Quay Street. The family had consisted of Richard, 40 years of age, fisherman by calling, Ruth, also 40 years, Fred, 14 years, fishmongers errand boy, Richard, 12 years, Ruth, 18 years, and Eliza, aged 16 years, all the family had been born in Scarborough.