Thomas Hunsley, was born at Arram, East Yorkshire, on 6th June 1896. Son of Mark Hunsley (1868-1936) and Hannah Elizabeth Taylor (1866-1938), of Leconfield (1911 Census) and Figham Gate, Beverley (war Pension address). Son of a farm labourer. He had two brothers and six sisters.
He enlisted in the Royal Navy, at Portsmouth, on 03/03/1915. Served as a Stoker, 1st Class and joined the HMS Black Prince, on 24/06/1915. He was killed at the Battle of Jutland, on 31/05/1916, aged 19. His name is listed on the Arram & Leconfield WW1 Memorial (35 served, 4 died).
“The cruiser Black Prince which, at the first meeting of the two main fleets had followed her flagship, Defence, into action and been roughly handled, at the time that Defence had been blown up and Warrior disabled, had been left behind by the Grand Fleet’s turn to the southward after deployment. For some reason which will never be known, she was still at this time far astern of and out of touch with the British fleet; but when a line of battleships was dimly seen ahead, it was no doubt thought that they were the British squadrons. Course was altered to close them. At a bare half-mile range, the German recognition signal flashed out. The horrified Captain Bonham, swung his ship away in a desperate effort to escape, but it was too late.
In the battleship Thuringen the same deadly efficient night action procedure that had been displayed at the head of the line went into play. Brilliantly lit by half-a-dozen searchlights, the Black Prince was raked from stern to stem by a tornado of shells and lay a helpless wreck before she could even fire a shot in reply. As she drifted down the German line, ship after ship opened up on her, Thuringen, Ostfriesland, Nassau and, finally, as the fleet flagship Friedrich der Grosse, added her quota, the Black Prince met the same end as the Defence, blowing up with a tremendous explosion, vanishing with all hands……” Extract from “Jutland” by Capt. Donald MacIntyre. 1957
