Born5 Apr 1872 Stonehouse, Devon. Son of the late William Richard Anstis (Pensioner, R.N.), husband of Catherine A. Anstis, of 175, Belmont Street, New Bridge Road., Hull (CWGC Address). He had two sons, William George and Charles Stanley Anstis.
Joined the Royal Navy, 8 Nov 1887. Lost at sea, on H.M.S. “Laurentic.” Carrying £300 million of gold bullion, struck two mines, in the bitter cold night, of 25/01/1917. Shortly after the sinking, the Royal Navy launched a recovery operation to retrieve the gold that the Laurentic was carrying. Thus began an operation which lasted two years, and while virtually all of the gold bars were recovered, 25 still remain on board the ship, or somewhere near the wreck valued today at about £3 million. 256 seamen of the Laurentic who lost their lives and were later recovered and buried or commemorated on the memorial within the churchyard, at St Mura’s Parish Church, Fahan. County Donegal. George Henry Anstis is Commemorated on the Plymouth Naval Memorial.
The logs of the liner Laurentic cover in detail her deployment transferring German prisoners of war from West Africa to the United Kingdom (December 1914 – January 1915). In 1915 she was converted into an Armed Merchant Cruiser and undertook patrol and shipping examination duties off Hong Kong and Singapore (February 1915 – August 1916) and transporting gold bullion from the United Kingdom and South Africa to Halifax, Nova Scotia from August 1916 until she was mined and sunk off the west coast of Ireland on 26 January 1917. On 24 July 1916 she left Cape Town for Halifax Nova Scotia carrying bullion. In order to pay America for munitions and armaments many vessels carried hugely expensive cargoes and Laurentic was no exception. On 23rd January 1917 she left Liverpool bound for Halifax Nova Scotia with £5 million of gold bullion aboard – 43 tons of gold, consisting of 3,211 bars carefully packed into wooden boxes, each measuring 12” long by 9” deep and weighing ten stone. Today’s value of this cargo is estimated to be in the region of £300 million. Rounding the NE coast of Ireland, four young ratings reported sick to the ship’s doctor, who promptly advised Captain Norton to drop them off at the nearest naval port because they had symptoms of yellow fever and he didn’t want it to spread throughout the ship. The nearest British naval port from their position was ‘HMS Hecla’, located at Buncrana, a small fishing harbour eighteen miles inside Lough Swilly, County Donegal. All British Naval Atlantic operations had been moved there after defences at Scapa Flow were breached by a German U-boat, causing devastation and havoc to the fleet anchored there. Operationally, Buncrana was the ideal location as a naval base. Geographically it was well placed, allowing easy access to the Atlantic approaches. The lough itself is deep enough to take any large ship yet too shallow to allow submarines to operate covertly. It was easily defended, with elevated gun positions on both sides of the lough. The ship eased toward Lough Swilly before daylight on Thursday, January 25th, and anchored two miles off Buncrana at 7:45am. The unexpected stopover was welcomed by the men and after discharging the sick crew members, some officers went ashore to sample the local hospitality at the Lough Swilly Hotel near the pier. Within a matter of hours, orders from HQ were issued to proceed and the crew were recalled back onboard to get ready to sail. Shortly after 5pm, the HMS Laurentic slipped anchor and made its way past Dunree Point heading towards the entrance to Lough Swilly, where it was scheduled to pick up a destroyer escort near Fanad Head. The night was viciously cold, a blizzard was blowing and Captain Norton made the fatal mistake of giving the order to proceed without the escort, despite warnings that reports were received that a U-boat had been spotted earlier at the entrance to the lough. Forty five minutes after leaving Buncrana In storm-force winds and snow, the ship struck two mines, causing massive explosions that ripped into the side of the ship. The first explosion hit midship, rapidly causing it to list 20 degrees, and making it practically impossible to launch lifeboats. The explosion destroyed the engine room, knocking out the ship’s generators and disabling the main pumps. The ship was cast into total darkness and with no power, no distress signal could be sent. Suddenly the second mine struck, securing the ship’s fate and within the hour the HMS Laurentic slipped below the waves. As the pumps couldn’t be operated, the lifeboats had to be launched in the dark. The men had to get into the lifeboats quickly but in the dark it was a terribly dangerous operation. Officially, 121 of the 475 men on board survived. However, it was a bitterly cold night and many subsequently died from exposure in the lifeboats. After abandoning the stricken ship, those who managed to make it to the lifeboats rowed towards Fanad Lighthouse. Exposed to the extreme cold during the night many froze to death as they desperately tried to make it to shore and were found the next day with the oars still in their hands. On that particular night, records for the area reported temperatures as low as minus 13 degrees. The condition of others lucky enough to be picked up by local fishing trawlers horrified their rescuers: they were totally exhausted and near death. Of the 475 officers and ratings onboard, 354 young men lost their lives that fateful night. In the weeks that followed, corpses were washed up on local beaches and one was washed up on the little island of Heisker in the Outer Hebrides 150 miles away. A mass grave in the church yard of St Muras at Fahan holds 71 bodies while others are buried in the many graveyards around Lough Swilly and beyond. The largest list of names of those lost can be seen on the Royal Naval Memorial Monument in Devon.
