Alice Mary Wheatland (1880-1958).
My great-grand aunt.
Alice Mary Wheatland was born on 7 December 1880 in Croydon, Surrey, to parents John Wheatland and Mary Coughlan. She was baptised on 31 January 1881 at St Peter’s Church in the town and grew up among her family in Selsdon Road.
In 1888 and 1890 Alice is recorded attending Brighton Road Junior School, South Croydon, when the family’s address was given as 6 and then 95 Sussex Road. She’s missing from the 1891 and 1901 censuses but crops up as a domestic servant living at 12 Northampton Road, Addiscombe, Surrey, in 1911. In March 1913 she married William Barker in Croydon. He hailed from Battersea in South London, born on 21 March 1888, worked as a plumber’s mate but then went on to serve in the Royal Navy from 1906 as a stoker on a variety of ships. The 1911 census recorded him on board HMS Swale, a torpedo boat destroyer that was moored at Grimsby at the time. Not long after he was transferred to the Reserve but on the outbreak of the First World War he was recalled to serve on HMS Hawke.
Tragedy struck just months after, on 15 October 1914, when the Hawke was destroyed and William killed. That month the Hawke and the rest of the 10th Cruiser Squadron had been deployed in the North Sea in order to prevent German warships from attacking a troop convoy from Canada. On 15 October, they were patrolling off Aberdeen when the Hawke positioned to pick up mail from sister ship Endymion. She then sailed back to her station but without zig-zagging and was out of sight of the rest of the ships when a single torpedo from the German submarine U-9 struck her. The Hawke quickly capsized. One of the survivors said: “We were struck right amidships between the two funnels quite close to one of the magazines. All hands were on deck, and it was a terrible explosion. The vessel immediately took a heavy list to starboard. I have never been on a ship so well equipped with life saving apparatus, but the way the vessel heeled over made it almost impossible to get the boats out. The boat in which I was saved had a narrow escape from being taken down with the suction.”
Only 70 men survived, 524 died. William’s body was never recovered but his name lives on in a memorial to stokers at Chatham Naval Dockyard, listed as a Stoker 1st Class. Alice would not be alone in losing a husband to war so early in her marriage but one can barely imagine the pain she must’ve endured, especially at having no body to bury. In addition, she was bringing up their child William, born in 1913, at her home at 95 Milton Road, Croydon, and was pregnant.
Alice married for a second time on 25 November 1917, at St James’s Church, Croydon. Her new husband was William Gomm, who’d been born in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, on 26 April 1886. He was also a sailor, an able seaman in the Royal Navy. He joined the service in 1904 and served through until 1923 as an able seaman. For much of the war he was aboard the battleship HMS Prince of Wales, which saw service in the Channel, the Mediterranean and the Adriatic. I’ve not found the couple in the 1939 Register. Alice’s death was registered in Croydon in 1958, William’s in 1967.
Alice’s children with William Barker were:
- William Barker (1913-????). Born on 1 April 1913 in Croydon, I’ve yet to trace him confidently.
- Henry John Barker (1915-1997). Born on 19 January 1915 in Croydon, he died in Kent in 1997.
Sources: RootsChat discussion. BMDs, census and other records at Ancestry.co.uk, Findmypast.co.uk, Familysearch.org. Family memories. The Western Front Association. Naval records at National Archives.