BORN DONCASTER 27/11/1895. SON OF ALFRED HENRY & BELINDA NEWTON. HIS FATHER REMARRIED FRANCES CHARITY VENUS & HAD 12 CHILDREN. HERBERT LIVED WITH HIS SISTER, EVA MARIA BONEWELL, AT 33 GEE STREET, HULL. HERBERT JOINED THE ROYAL NAVY A YEAR AFTER HIS MOTHER DIED AND HAD SERVED FOR THREE AND HALF YEARS. HE WAS LOST WITH HIS SHIP AT THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND, AGED 20. HERBERT’S DEATH WAS REPORTED IN THE HULL DAILY MAIL WITH HIS PHOTOGRAPH ON 9TH JUNE 1916. * HE LIVED WITH HIS BROTHER ALBERT VENUS AT 33 GEE STREET, HULL, WHO WAS KILLED IN FRANCE A YEAR EARLIER ON 24TH MAY 1915. BOTH ARE RECORDED AS KILLED, ON HULL’S WELLSTED STREET ROLL OF HONOUR (Hull Daily Mail 25 September 1916)
Albert Venus born in 1893 at Hull and had just turned 22 years of age when he was killed in action on the morning of 24th May 1915. He was the seventh of a family of twelve children from his father’s second marriage. In spite of the number of children, the family appear to have been relatively prosperous by the contemporary standards of late Victorian society.
His father, Alfred, was a successful merchant, transporting coal via the canal network from South Yorkshire to Humberside who by the 1890s owned his own barge. Only a few years later, the fortunes of the family had changed for the worse. Albert’s mother, Frances, suffered a prolonged illness and the father was obliged to take up employment as a night watchman in a shipbuilding yard. By the time of the 1911 census, the mother had died the previous year and the eldest children were engaged in a variety of trades from dressmaking to domestic service and dock labouring to help sustain the family that still had two younger children of school age. Albert made his own contribution to the family by signing up for a five year indentured apprenticeship with the trawler fleet of Kelsall Brothers & Beeching Ltd in January 1909. He did not, however, complete his apprenticeship but, instead, worked his passage to Canada where he remained for three years before returning to Hull. Albert enlisted in the 2nd Northumbrian Brigade in December 1914 and joined the first line Hull Batteries to complete his training as a Gunner. Although he was killed in action with the Scarborough and Whitby North Riding Battery of the Brigade, as a ‘pool’ Gunner he remained badged with his shoulder titles as an East Riding Battery man. One of Albert’s younger brothers, Herbert, was also killed in action on 31st May 1916 during the Battle of Jutland. Herbert died along with the entire complement of a crew of more than eight hundred men when the magazine of their ship, HMS Black Prince, was hit by a German shell that caused a catastrophic explosion. HMS BLACK PRINCE participated in the Battle of Jutland, but her end was a mystery for many years, as she had lost contact with the British fleet. The German account reads that HMS BLACK PRINCE briefly engaged the German battleship RHEINLAND at about 23:35 GMT, scoring two hits with 6-inch shells. HMS BLACK PRINCE then approached the German lines and she turned away from the German battleships, but it was too late. The German battleship THURINGEN fixed the BLACK PRINCE in her searchlights and opened fire. Up to five other German ships, including battleships NASSAU, OSTFRIESLAND and FRIEDRICH DER GROSSE joined. BLACK PRINCE was hit by at least twelve heavy shells and several smaller ones and sank within 15 minutes with no survivors of her 857 complement. Read more at wrecksite: https://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?10795. http://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/Poignant-funeral-Albert-Venus- forgotten-Hull/story-29145427-detail/story.html
