BORN HULL 1884. SON OF JOHN & JANE BROWN & FAMILY AT THIS ADDRESS. HIS NAME WAS LISTED ON THE ST MARKS STREET MEMORIAL. KILLED IN ACTION ON THE 09/11/1918, WHEN HMS ‘BRITANNIA’, WAS TORPEDOED. HE DIED JUST TWO DAYS BEFORE THE WAR ENDED. AGED 34. HIS WIFE GERTRUDE BROWN (NEE FISH) OF OAKVILLE, ONTARIO, CANADA.
HMS Britannia; King Edward VII class battleship; Built in 1904 at the Portsmouth Navy Dockyard; 16.350 tons; 453.7x78x26.7 ft.; 18.000 i.h.p. ; 18.9 knots; triple expansion engines. On November 9th, 1918, the battleship HMS Britannia was steaming towards Gibraltar in company of two destroyers, when she was torpedoed by the German U-boot UB-50 (Cdr. H. Kukat). Two torpedoes missed her, but the third one struck her amidships and made the cordite explode. 40 lost their lives in the explosion. Most of the crew was saved, as it took her 3 hours to sink, off Cape Trafalgar.He died with:-
WILSON, THOMAS (22), Stoker 1st Class (no. SS/117286), H.M.S. Britannia, Royal Navy, †10/11/1918, Son of Horatio and Mary Elizabeth Wilson, of 15, Hume St., Holderness Rd., Hull, Memorial: Gibraltar (North Front) Cemetery
