THE DOVER PATROL, ENGLISH CHANNEL, 1914-18
George William Allbones, Engineman, HMT Corona, Royal Naval Reserve
St. Margaret of Antioch's, St. Margaret-on-Cliffe, Kent
The Background
Maybe it comes from being a landlocked northerner, but my knowledge of naval operations is definitely sketchy. The romanticized visions I have gleaned from Forester and O’Brien involve blockades, sea battles and raging tempests. The apparent realism of ‘The Cruel Sea’ and ‘In Which We Serve’ is comprised of convoys and U-boat attacks. The everyday logistics of the navy had passed me by until I wandered into the church of St. Margaret of Antioch at St. Margaret-at-Cliffe, just north of Dover, and found the Book of Remembrance for The Dover Patrol.
I had never heard of The Dover Patrol, and a quick survey of friends found only one who had, and that was because as a boy in the 1960s he had a board game of that name (his was the post-WW2 version, but the original had been published in 1919). Despite our ignorance, The Dover Patrol was a huge operation, and two thousand men are commemorated in that Book of Remembrance, and on the memorial erected at nearby Leathercote Point.
The Dover Patrol was a Royal Navy Command, based at Dover. It was not just naval combat ships, however. Seaplanes, aeroplanes and airships were on its strength, and from 1915 the Admiralty requisitioned trawlers, yachts, launches and motorboats, armed them, and then used them in a variety of rôles. Maintained by the local Dover Engineering Works, the Patrol’s vessels were used: as escorts for merchant shipping, fishing fleets, hospital ships and troops ships; in anti-submarine patrols; and for mine-laying and minesweeping. The latter purpose was especially suited to trawlers, as their set-up for trawling could be readily adapted for their new function.
The Ship
Such a ship was the Corona, a modern Grimsby trawler built by The Dundee Shipbuilding Company in 1912 (the same company that had built Scott’s Discovery), and operated by The Grimsby and North Sea Fishing Company under the registration number GY684. She only worked just over two years as a trawler before being requisitioned by The Admiralty in February 1915. Her crew were inducted into the Royal Naval Reserve or the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, she was armed with two guns (one three-pounder and one six-pounder), allocated a new number, HMT (His Majesty’s Trawler) 1137, and sent into action as a minesweeper. Among her crew was the engineman, George Allbones. In 1915 he was forty-nine, the father of at least four children, all boys, and had led an interesting domestic life.
The Man
He was born in Grimsby in 1865, the son of Henry and Elizabeth. In 1871 the family lived in Harrison’s Buildings, lying between numbers 49 and 51, Bath Street. This was probably a small tenement block, and its occupants were hardly moneyed class. The adults were a fisherman, a washerwoman, and three labourers, two of whom were unemployed.
Henry Allbones was the employed labourer, and he had retained his employment ten years later, although he had lost his family. While Henry was lodging in Chapman Street, he had separated from Elizabeth. She, a “worker in a fish house”, was with her son, James and his family. James was a labourer in an oil mill, as was his brother, David. George was also there, although he has no occupation recorded.
In 1887 George married Fanny Cutler at St. Andrew’s, Grimsby, when she was no older than 16. It would be nice to say that the marriage, unlike that of his parents, was blessed with happiness, but it would be a lie. Only four years after the marriage, in 1891, Fanny was back living with her parents. George was probably at sea at the time, so her being with her parents would not be too surprising were it not for the fact that twenty years later she was still with them, still using her married name. George, however, was somewhere else, with another wife.
By 1911 George was living in Tiverton Street, Cleethorpes, and was working as an engineer on a steam trawler. His ‘wife’ was a 29 year-old, Betsy, and the couple had four sons aged from 9 years old to 1 month. According to the census entry they had been married ten years, but that was being economical with the truth. George William Allbones did not marry Betsy Ranshaw until 1915, and when they did they were in Kent. It looks as though they believed that the move to the South Coast, to join the Dover Patrol, would allow them to get away with a bigamous marriage (Fanny did not die until 1946).
The Action
It appears that they did get away with it, but not in the manner desired. On the 23rd March 1916 HMT Corona was minesweeping in the Dover Straits, off Ramsgate, when it was targeted by U-boat UC6, commanded by Matthias, Graf von Schmettow (one of whose relatives went on to be in charge of the occupying German forces in The Channel Islands in World War Two). The Corona was under the command of a RNR Lieutenant, James Irvine, and had a temporary skipper, Frank Thornton, but they could not prevent the Corona striking a mine laid by UC6. The trawler sank with the loss of all thirteen crew, including George Allbones and his fellow engine man, William Jones, both trapped in the engine-room.
The Aftermath
Neither the Graf von Schmettow nor his U-boat survived to the end of the war, and both became victims of The Dover Patrol. Von Schmettow died somewhere in the Dover Straits in May 1917, and UC6 was caught in a mined net and sank off North Foreland in September of that year, with the loss of all 16 crew. A lot of men died in a theatre of the First World War that is seldom discussed.
One final piece of irony. George’s father, Henry, was born in the Lincolnshire village of High Toynton. High Toynton is one of the 13 Doubly Thankful Villages, those villages that lost no men in either of the two World Wars – obviously they do not consider extended families.
THIS BOOK OF REMEMBRANCE BEING WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1921 CONTAINS A RECORD OF ALL THE NAMES OF ALL THOSE WHO DIED IN THE SERVICE OF THEIR KING AND COUNTRY WHILST SERVING IN OR ATTACHED TO THE DOVER PATROL
THE CREW OF THE CORONA:
GEORGE WILLIAMS ALLBONES, ENGINEMAN
REGINALD ALFRED CHANDLER, ORDINARY TELEGRAPHIST, FROM LONDON
THOMAS CLIFTON, 2ND HAND
WILLIAM JOHN COULTER, TRIMMER
ALEXANDER CRAWFORD, TRIMMER, FROM GOVAN
BERTRAM GILCHRIST, LEADING SIGNALMAN, FROM SOUTH SHIELDS
FREDERICK HALL, TRIMMER COOK
JAMES IRVINE, LIEUTENANT
WILLIAM JONES, ENGINEMAN, FROM GRIMSBY
DUNCAN MCKINNON, DECK HAND
ALFRED HENRY RUSSELL, DECK HAND, FROM RAMSGATE
DAVID B. SMITH, DECK HAND, FROM MIDDLESBROUGH
FRANK ERNEST THORNTON, TEMPORARY SKIPPER
George William Allbones, Engineman, HMT Corona, Royal Naval Reserve
St. Margaret of Antioch's, St. Margaret-on-Cliffe, Kent
The Background
Maybe it comes from being a landlocked northerner, but my knowledge of naval operations is definitely sketchy. The romanticized visions I have gleaned from Forester and O’Brien involve blockades, sea battles and raging tempests. The apparent realism of ‘The Cruel Sea’ and ‘In Which We Serve’ is comprised of convoys and U-boat attacks. The everyday logistics of the navy had passed me by until I wandered into the church of St. Margaret of Antioch at St. Margaret-at-Cliffe, just north of Dover, and found the Book of Remembrance for The Dover Patrol.
I had never heard of The Dover Patrol, and a quick survey of friends found only one who had, and that was because as a boy in the 1960s he had a board game of that name (his was the post-WW2 version, but the original had been published in 1919). Despite our ignorance, The Dover Patrol was a huge operation, and two thousand men are commemorated in that Book of Remembrance, and on the memorial erected at nearby Leathercote Point.
The Dover Patrol was a Royal Navy Command, based at Dover. It was not just naval combat ships, however. Seaplanes, aeroplanes and airships were on its strength, and from 1915 the Admiralty requisitioned trawlers, yachts, launches and motorboats, armed them, and then used them in a variety of rôles. Maintained by the local Dover Engineering Works, the Patrol’s vessels were used: as escorts for merchant shipping, fishing fleets, hospital ships and troops ships; in anti-submarine patrols; and for mine-laying and minesweeping. The latter purpose was especially suited to trawlers, as their set-up for trawling could be readily adapted for their new function.
The Ship
Such a ship was the Corona, a modern Grimsby trawler built by The Dundee Shipbuilding Company in 1912 (the same company that had built Scott’s Discovery), and operated by The Grimsby and North Sea Fishing Company under the registration number GY684. She only worked just over two years as a trawler before being requisitioned by The Admiralty in February 1915. Her crew were inducted into the Royal Naval Reserve or the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, she was armed with two guns (one three-pounder and one six-pounder), allocated a new number, HMT (His Majesty’s Trawler) 1137, and sent into action as a minesweeper. Among her crew was the engineman, George Allbones. In 1915 he was forty-nine, the father of at least four children, all boys, and had led an interesting domestic life.
The Man
He was born in Grimsby in 1865, the son of Henry and Elizabeth. In 1871 the family lived in Harrison’s Buildings, lying between numbers 49 and 51, Bath Street. This was probably a small tenement block, and its occupants were hardly moneyed class. The adults were a fisherman, a washerwoman, and three labourers, two of whom were unemployed.
Henry Allbones was the employed labourer, and he had retained his employment ten years later, although he had lost his family. While Henry was lodging in Chapman Street, he had separated from Elizabeth. She, a “worker in a fish house”, was with her son, James and his family. James was a labourer in an oil mill, as was his brother, David. George was also there, although he has no occupation recorded.
In 1887 George married Fanny Cutler at St. Andrew’s, Grimsby, when she was no older than 16. It would be nice to say that the marriage, unlike that of his parents, was blessed with happiness, but it would be a lie. Only four years after the marriage, in 1891, Fanny was back living with her parents. George was probably at sea at the time, so her being with her parents would not be too surprising were it not for the fact that twenty years later she was still with them, still using her married name. George, however, was somewhere else, with another wife.
By 1911 George was living in Tiverton Street, Cleethorpes, and was working as an engineer on a steam trawler. His ‘wife’ was a 29 year-old, Betsy, and the couple had four sons aged from 9 years old to 1 month. According to the census entry they had been married ten years, but that was being economical with the truth. George William Allbones did not marry Betsy Ranshaw until 1915, and when they did they were in Kent. It looks as though they believed that the move to the South Coast, to join the Dover Patrol, would allow them to get away with a bigamous marriage (Fanny did not die until 1946).
The Action
It appears that they did get away with it, but not in the manner desired. On the 23rd March 1916 HMT Corona was minesweeping in the Dover Straits, off Ramsgate, when it was targeted by U-boat UC6, commanded by Matthias, Graf von Schmettow (one of whose relatives went on to be in charge of the occupying German forces in The Channel Islands in World War Two). The Corona was under the command of a RNR Lieutenant, James Irvine, and had a temporary skipper, Frank Thornton, but they could not prevent the Corona striking a mine laid by UC6. The trawler sank with the loss of all thirteen crew, including George Allbones and his fellow engine man, William Jones, both trapped in the engine-room.
The Aftermath
Neither the Graf von Schmettow nor his U-boat survived to the end of the war, and both became victims of The Dover Patrol. Von Schmettow died somewhere in the Dover Straits in May 1917, and UC6 was caught in a mined net and sank off North Foreland in September of that year, with the loss of all 16 crew. A lot of men died in a theatre of the First World War that is seldom discussed.
One final piece of irony. George’s father, Henry, was born in the Lincolnshire village of High Toynton. High Toynton is one of the 13 Doubly Thankful Villages, those villages that lost no men in either of the two World Wars – obviously they do not consider extended families.
THIS BOOK OF REMEMBRANCE BEING WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1921 CONTAINS A RECORD OF ALL THE NAMES OF ALL THOSE WHO DIED IN THE SERVICE OF THEIR KING AND COUNTRY WHILST SERVING IN OR ATTACHED TO THE DOVER PATROL
THE CREW OF THE CORONA:
GEORGE WILLIAMS ALLBONES, ENGINEMAN
REGINALD ALFRED CHANDLER, ORDINARY TELEGRAPHIST, FROM LONDON
THOMAS CLIFTON, 2ND HAND
WILLIAM JOHN COULTER, TRIMMER
ALEXANDER CRAWFORD, TRIMMER, FROM GOVAN
BERTRAM GILCHRIST, LEADING SIGNALMAN, FROM SOUTH SHIELDS
FREDERICK HALL, TRIMMER COOK
JAMES IRVINE, LIEUTENANT
WILLIAM JONES, ENGINEMAN, FROM GRIMSBY
DUNCAN MCKINNON, DECK HAND
ALFRED HENRY RUSSELL, DECK HAND, FROM RAMSGATE
DAVID B. SMITH, DECK HAND, FROM MIDDLESBROUGH
FRANK ERNEST THORNTON, TEMPORARY SKIPPER
Sources
Photo
Twentieth-century monument to the Dover Patrol - Wikimedia Commons, by Ethan Doyle White
HMT Elk - http://www.hsd1223.org.uk, website of Havering Scuba Divers
St. Margaret of Antioch Church, St. Margaret-at-Cliffe - tudorbarlow.wordpress.com
Military
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dover_patrol
www.boardgamegeek.com
www.navalhistory.net
www.uboat.net
www.worldnavalships.com
www.wrecksite.eu
Genealogy
www.ancestry.co.uk
www.cwgc.org
www.findmypast.com
Photo
Twentieth-century monument to the Dover Patrol - Wikimedia Commons, by Ethan Doyle White
HMT Elk - http://www.hsd1223.org.uk, website of Havering Scuba Divers
St. Margaret of Antioch Church, St. Margaret-at-Cliffe - tudorbarlow.wordpress.com
Military
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dover_patrol
www.boardgamegeek.com
www.navalhistory.net
www.uboat.net
www.worldnavalships.com
www.wrecksite.eu
Genealogy
www.ancestry.co.uk
www.cwgc.org
www.findmypast.com
ⓒ Jonathan Dewhirst, March 2014
