HMS Bulwark

 

HMS Bulwark

                        William Robert Mayne, Chief Yeoman of Signals

Since 1777 there have been seven ships bearing the name ‘Bulwark.’ The name references the Royal Navy as the bulwark or defence of the country.

The seventh ship of the name is an amphibious assault ship launched in 2001 and delivered into service in 2005.

The fifth HMS Bulwark was an armoured battleship laid down in Devonport dockyard in 1899 and completed in 1902. At one time she was commanded by Captain R.F. Scott, then the most junior battleship captain, who later became famous as an explorer, dying in Antarctica in 1912.

Two of her sister ships, were built at Chatham dockyard, HMS Venerable completing in 1902 and HMS Prince of Wales, in 1904.

                                                    HMS Bulwark

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Bulwark was the flag ship of the Mediterranean Fleet, and later the flag ship of the Channel and Home Fleets. The flag ship carried the admiral, the commanding officer of the fleet. For four years, from 1910 to 1914, she was mothballed, to be kept in reserve.

However, when the First World War began in July 1914, Bulwark was brought out of reserve in August to form part of the Channel Fleet with the express purpose of patrolling the North Kent Coast and protecting the British Expeditionary Force as it crossed to France.

Moored west of Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey, in the River Medway estuary, Bulwark was taking on coal from the Isle of Grain, when she was torn apart by a huge explosion, on 26^th November, 1914.

In the House of Commons that afternoon, Winston Churchill announced, ‘I regret to say I have some bad news for the House. The Bulwark battleship, which was lying in Sheerness this morning, blew up at 7.35 o’clock . . . the loss of life is very severe. Only twelve men are saved. All the officers and the rest of the crew, who, I suppose, amounted to between 700 and 800, have perished.’

The explosion was heard twenty miles away in Whitstable and at first, sabotage was suspected, or the beginning of the feared Zeppelin raids. The Naval Court of Enquiry established as far as it could that an internal explosion had occurred. It concluded that a fault with one of the ammunition shells or overheating cordite near a boiler room bulkhead might have been responsible for the explosion.

Eye witnesses, on shore and on nearby vessels, described seeing the flash of detonation, and that once the thick smoke had dissipated, there was nothing to be seen. The ship had completely disappeared. The explosion was so violent that little could be found of her when naval divers went down to investigate. Debris, clothes and bodies were blown into the rigging of other ships in the vicinity. It remains the second most catastrophic accidental explosion ever seen in the UK.

The area of the wreck is a designated Military Wreck, or war grave, and is marked by East Bulwark and West Bulwark buoys.

Of the few survivors, five died of their wounds within days, and most of the others were seriously wounded. Only thirty bodies were recovered for individual burial. The rest were placed in a communal grave. Most of the crew came from the Portsmouth area.

Bulwark’s sister ships, Venerable and Prince of Wales, served throughout the war and were broken up in 1920.

The crew members were young, some only 15 or 16.

Boy 1st Class William Monckton Kellow J/28702	Royal Navy, HMS Bulwark	26/11/1914 (aged 15)
Midshipman William Ellice	Royal Navy, HMS Bulwark	26/11/1914 (aged 15)
Boy 1st Class Edward Ernest Leslie Hyslop J/28341	Royal Navy, HMS Bulwark	26/11/1914 (aged 16)

The final hearing was held on 16^th December, 1914, my father’s tenth birthday. He was the youngest of three brothers and his father had been killed on HMS Bulwark. His father’s masonic regalia was washed ashore and returned to his mother.

Chief Yeoman of Signals William Robert Mayne 167410

Royal Navy, HMS Bulwark

26/11/1914 (aged 39)

MAYNE, WILLIAM ROBERT (39), Chief Yeoman of Signals (no. 167410), HMS Bulwark, Royal Navy, †26/11/1914, Son of Henry and Ellen Mayne, of 9, Harold Terrace, Emsworth, Hants.; husband of Harriet Mayne, of Frondeg, Penllergaer, Gorseinon, Glam, Memorial: Portsmouth Naval Memorial

Will stands between his father and my father, the baby. Harry is in front.

My father and his eldest brother both went on to join the navy, the Royal Navy for my father and the Royal Canadian Navy for Will. The middle brother, Harry, disappeared, cutting off all ties with his family, to his mother’s eternal regret.

William, standing, Harry left, and Charles right.