Vicki Walker of Little Crakehall called into the museum to show us a photograph of Duncan Harvie, her grandfather.
The photo is a postcard addressed to ‘Mary and Sam’, sent on 3 April 1916 and shows a group of Signallers on board HMS Laconia. Duncan Harvie (5th South African Regiment) is sat at the front of the group with crossed legs.
The ship’s log shows the Laconia (an armed merchant cruiser) to be anchored at Zanzibar on that date, on it’s way to British East Africa (now Kenya). The ship was used in the early part of the war to patrol the South Atlantic and the Indian Ocean, but in April 1915 her role changed and she was used as a headquarters ship to aid in the fight in German East Africa. Following her return to to Cunard, the Laconia was sunk by U-50 160 miles northwest of Fastnet while returning form the United States on 25th February 1917. Twelve people were killed following a double torpedo strike.
Explore more memories from the ribbon
-
Evelyn Fletcher
Marion Moverley, a Richmond resident, provided us with information about her grandmother, Evelyn Fletcher. My grandmother was called Evelyn Fletcher and born in 1898 in Halifax. She met my grandfather Tom Stocks who was born in 1897 in Bradford, and they married in 1920. They both played a part in the War. Tom joined up, Evelyn worked in munition factories. The photograph shows a munitions factory in the Bradford/Halifax district, with two figures picked out by ‘x’ marks in biro. The girl marked on the left appears to be Evelyn and the one on the right is probably her sister, Lizzie Fletcher.
-
Thomas Outhwaite
The Outhwaite family came to live in Stalling Busk in the Raydaleside area near Bainbridge in the 1730s to farm the land. Thomas’s father William had married Eleanor Pickard, a girl from Newbiggin near Aysgarth. They later lived for a time at Ingleton in the Dales where Thomas was born in 1880. Thomas would be one of 6 children. Shortly after 1880 they moved back to Stalling Busk. Thomas’s father eventually became the gamekeeper on the estate of Colonel Percy Williams, MP, of Raydale Grange. In 1905 Thomas’s brother William took over the Rope works in Hawes, which still operates today under the Outhwaite name. By now Thomas had married Gertrude Sherrington, a girl from Tunstall near Catterick and was working with his father on the Raydale Estate. Thomas enlisted in 1915 joining the 9th Battalion Yorkshire Regiment. It was during The Battle of Messines in June 1917 that on the 19th Private Thomas Pickard Outhwaite was wounded, he died of his wounds later that day. He is buried at the Military Cemetery in Poperinge.
-
George Butterworth
At the outbreak of the First World War, George Butterworth was being described as the most promising British composer of his day. George was born in Paddington, London in 1885 but at the age of six moved to Yorkshire when his father became first solicitor and then General Manager of the North Eastern Railway Company. George inherited his mother’s talent for music (she was a professional singer before her marriage). His parents sent him to Aysgarth Preparatory School, near Bedale where he played the organ during school services. His musical ability led to him gaining an Organ Scholarship to Eton College. He initally entered Trinity College, Oxford with the intention of studying law, but this idea was abandoned as he became increasingly interested in setting down the folk music of the British Isles. At the outbreak of the First World War, George enlisted in the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry and was later granted a commission in the Durham Light Infantry. He was on active service for almost a year and awarded the Military Cross in 1917. The citation states that he had commanded the Company when the Captain was wounded ‘with great ability and coolness … and total disregard of personal safety’. Less than a month later, on Saturday 5 August, he was shot through the head by a German sniper in ‘Munster Alley’. Only a day later, William Short of the 8th Battalion, Yorkshire Regiment undertook the action which led to his posthumous Victoria Cross in the same…