James William Hargrave

A Boatswain and Lamps with S.S. Oriole (London). James died on 30th of January 1915 at the age of 43. 

James was born at Lowestoft in 1871, a son of James and Elizabeth Hargrave. He was baptised at Saint Margaret's Church, Lowestoft, on 1 October 1871. In 1881 his family lived at 6 Grosvenor Road, Lowestoft. 

In 1891 James was lodging at 45 Battersea Park Road, Battersea, London, and James was a lighterman's apprentice and it seems that he began work as a Thames Lighterman in 1888. 

On 17 January 1897 James married Ellen Eliza Woolno at Saint Peter's Church, Kirkley. James was a mariner and they both lived at Kirkley. By 1901 they were living at 18 Rowell Street, Hartlepool. Ellen died in 1904. 

James married Alice Elizabeth Jeffery in 1906, this was registered in the Mutford district. In 1911 their home was at 78 Saint Leonards Road, South Lowestoft.

On 29 January 1915 the S.S. Oriole set sail from London to take its cargo to Le Havre. The ship was last seen, off Dungeness, on 30th January 1915. The ship had been torpedoed by a German submarine. In February 1915 two life buoys from the ship washed up in Sussex. In March 1915 a bottle was found by a Guernsey fisherman containing a note written by the ship's carpenter saying 'Oriole torpedoed - sinking'. All 21 crew were lost.

See: SS Oriole and the blockade of the UK | Great War London (wordpress.com)