My Great Grandfather a Sailor
My paternal great grandfather Herbert John Thomas Barrett (his middle names were often a source of humour) was born in Croydon London on the 30th September 1881. The family legend is he was apparently Champion Baby of all England, and the secret to his winning was being fed on blocks of butter as an infant. He joined the British navy in 1899 at the age of 18. As an adult he was tattooed from the neck down, except for his hands and feet. He had a fox hunt on his back with the fox’s tail disappearing up between his buttocks. He left the British navy in 1911, immigrating to Australia and worked on the railways. He was a porter at the Wallangarra railway station. He died in Toowoomba Queensland at the age of 95 years.
Herbert John Thomas Barrett was educated at Holy Trinity Mission in Selhurst in Croydon London and in 1891 he was awarded a prize of a book “Electricity and its Wonders” by Ascot R. Hope (1891) by Vicar R. Patterson. Herbert was 10 years old and in 2nd class. Meaning he began school at 9 years old. Eight years later he was in the British Navy. His schooling was brief.
Herbert officially joined the British Royal Navy on his 18th Birthday. But he was already on his first training ship on 14 February 1898 (HMS St. Vincent) at the age of 17. Herbert rose in the ranks, beginning as Boy (14 February 1898–30 September 1899), then Ordinary Seaman (30 September 1899–3 January 1901), and then Able Seaman (AB more than two years experience at sea — 3 January 1901). Having been made an AB in 1901 Herbert remained on ships as such until 29 September 1911 when he was discharged with the note ‘Shore b.l. Expd.’. Between 1898 and 1911 Herbert served on HMS St. Vincent, Agincourt, Sans Pareil, Highflyer, Pembroke and Pembroke I, Wildfire, Repulse, Dominion and Vulcan.
As ships began to use increasingly complex technology during the late 19th century, training facilities became too large to continue to be used while afloat and were moved to shore establishments while keeping their names. An early “stone frigate” was the engineering training college HMS Marlborough, moved ashore to Portsmouth in 1880. The gunnery school continued to be named HMS Excellent after its move ashore to Whale Island in 1891. By World War I there were about 25 “stone frigates” in the United Kingdom. Under section 67 of the Naval Discipline Act 1866, the provisions of the act only applied to officers and men of the Royal Navy borne on the books of a warship. When shore establishments began to become more common it was necessary to allocate the title of the establishment to an actual vessel which became the nominal depot ship for the men allocated to the establishment and thus ensured they were subject to the provisions of the Act.
HMS St. Vincent was one of class of three, and the only one to see active service, though she was not put into commission until 1829, when she became the flagship of William Carnegie, 7th Earl of Northesk, under Northesk’s flag captain, Edward Hawker, at Plymouth Dockyard. After paying-off in April 1830 she was recommissioned the following month and was made flagship at Portsmouth Dockyard. From 1831 until 1834 she served in the Mediterranean. Placed on harbour service at Portsmouth in 1841, she joined the Experimental Squadron in 1846. From May 1847 until April 1849 she was the flagship of Rear-Admiral Sir Charles Napier, commanding the Channel Fleet. After a spell in ordinary at Portsmouth, from July to September 1854, during the Crimean War, she was used to transport French troops to the Baltic. Subsequently she became a depot ship at Portsmouth. She was commissioned as a training ship in 1862, and specifically as a training ship for boys, moored permanently at Haslar from 1870. In this role she retained 26 guns.
In 1901 HMS Highflyer served in the Indian Ocean as the flagship of Rear-Admiral Day Bosanquet, Commander-in-Chief East Indies Station. Admiral Sir Day Hort Bosanquet GCVO, KCB (22 March 1843–1923) was the Governor of South Australia from 18 February 1909 until 22 March 1914. The East Indies Station, established in 1865, covered the Indian Ocean (excluding the waters around the Dutch East Indies, South Africa and Australia) and included the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea. These responsibilities did not imply territorial claims, but rather that the navy would actively protect Britain’s trading interests. The East Indies Station had bases at Colombo, Trincomalee, Bombay, Basra and Aden. In response to increased Japanese threats, the separate East Indies Station was merged with the China Station in December 1941 to form the Eastern Fleet
From November 1902 to March 1903 Captain Arthur Christian commanded Highflyer as the flagship of Rear-Admiral Sir Charles Drury. Highflyer was at the head of the squadron of six ships that took part in the Somaliland Campaign in various coastal capacities. The ships assisted in landing troops and stores, in transport work, and in the prevention of delivery of munitions to the enemy. Three officers attached to Highflyer were landed, and assisted the progress of the campaign with a wireless telegraphy apparatus.
On 16 April 1904, some ships of the East Indies Station under Rear Admiral George Atkinson-Willes left Berbera to bombard Ilig in Somaliland, in cooperation with an advance overland force. The capture of Ilig was effected on 21 April, the British losing 3 men killed and 11 wounded, and the Dervishes 58 killed and 14 wounded. My great grandfather told my father the shelling of Ilig was not as effective as the British had hoped as the buildings were mostly made of mud and this did not shatter and kill more of the enemy than they wanted. The naval detachment which had fought the battle remained ashore for four days, assisted by an Italian naval detachment that arrived on 22 April. Control of Ilig was finally relinquished to Ali Yusuf of Hobyo. Having defeated his forces in the field and forced his retreat, the British “offered Mohammed Abdullah Hassan safe conduct into permanent exile at Mecca”; Hassan did not reply.
HMS Agincourt was a Minotaur-class armoured frigate built for the Royal Navy during the 1860s. She spent most of her career as the flagship of the Channel Squadron’s second-in-command. During the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78, she was one of the ironclads sent to Constantinople to forestall a Russian occupation of the Ottoman capital. Agincourt participated in Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee Fleet Review in 1887. The ship was placed in reserve two years later and served as a training ship from 1893 to 1909. That year she was converted into a coal hulk and renamed as C.109. Agincourt served at Sheerness until sold for scrap in 1960.
HMS Sans Pareil was commissioned at Chatham on 8 July 1891 to take part in manoeuvres, and then went into reserve. She was posted to the Mediterranean Fleet in February 1892, serving on this station until April 1895 when she paid off and was named as port guard ship at Sheerness. She was refitted from April 1899, and resumed duty as Sheerness guardship on 19 January 1900, serving until January 1904. On 1 October 1901 Rear-Admiral Sir Baldwin Walker hoisted his flag as second in command of the Reserve squadron. In June 1902 she was docked in the Medway, during a trial of the New Bermuda Floating dock. She took part in the fleet review held at Spithead on 16 August 1902 for the coronation of King Edward VII, and the following month went to Chatham Dockyard for a short refit, resuming duty after a couple of weeks. She was sold for scrap in 1907 as part of the fleet modernisation programme instigated by the First Sea Lord, Admiral Fisher.
Herbert’s son, (my grandfather) Arthur Fredrick Barrett was born in 1 September 1909 at 39 Milton Road, Croydon London (the above image is from outside the address, but the house no longer exists). Herbert’s profession on the birth certificate of his son Arthur is given as ‘Seaman Royal Navy’. Herbert was apparently a lover of women, and when my grandfather was a small baby he returned home on short leave only to go out on the town. My great grandmother followed him one night to a music hall and sat behind him with the baby in her arms complaining loudly while my great grandfather was in the company of another woman. One of my earliest memories is of meeting Emily in what was probably the last year of her life. She was blind and I was four years old and she was 86. She was in the kitchen of a old house and said to me “Is that Jamie?”. I had never met a blind person before and I was a bit frightened of her. I have no memory of meeting my great grandfather but I did meet him when I was child. I was 7 years old when he died. He spent his final years in the a nursing home in Toowoomba. He remained a lover of women until the end.
