Alfred Charles Chatteriss

A Sapper with Inland Waterways Transport, Alfred died on 10th of May 1917 at the age of 35. 

Alfred was born at Lowestoft in 1882, a son of Alfred Charles and Elizabeth Chatteriss. In 1891 his family lived at 85 Saint Margaret’s Road and by 1901 at Bishops Buildings, Mariners Street, and Alfred was a baker’s assistant. 

Alfred married Martha Florence Louisa George at Lowestoft Register Office on 19 September 1908. By 1911 they were living at 4 Riverside Road and Alfred was a coal porter working for a coal merchant. Later Martha lived at Silver Street, Besthorpe, Attleborough, Norfolk.

At some point before World War One Alfred had served with the Territorial Force. 

Alfred was working as a coal porter when he attested for the Army at Lowestoft on 11 December 1915. He was called up on 21 August 1916 and posted to the Army Reserve on 22 August. Alfred was then recalled on 5 October 1916 and joined the Inland Water Transport section of the Royal Engineers, service number 205761. 

In May 1917 Alfred was serving on board the transport vessel P.T.1. The vessel left Glasgow on 9 May and early the next day was off the Isle of Man when a gale blew up. The vessel began to sink, and the crew were ordered to take to the lifeboats. Alfred, and eleven other men got into the port boat, but the heavy sea threw them into the water. Five men were rescued by the other lifeboat, but Alfred, and the others could not be saved. Alfred’s body was found by the trawler Summerville, of Fleetwood, and landed at Peel on 10 May. Alfred was buried, with military honours, on 13 May. 

Correspondence in Alfred’s service papers, in WO 363, show that Alfred had died from exposure, and that no inquest was to be held and no account of the event was to be reported in the local press.  

Alfred's brother Benjamin served with the Royal Naval Reserve and died in 1916.