Name
Arthur William Richards
5 May 1900
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
09/07/1917
17
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Boy 1st Class
J/45298
Royal Navy
H.M.S. "Vanguard"
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
CHATHAM NAVAL MEMORIAL
22.
United Kingdom
Headstone Inscription
No Report
UK & Other Memorials
Christchurch Memorial, Little Heath, Potters Bar, Little Heath & Bentley Heath Memorial, Potters Bar, All Souls Chapel Book of Remembrance, Potters Bar
Pre War
Arthur William Richards was born in Bethnal Green, London on 5 May 1900 to Henry Frederick Richards, french polisher, and Ellen (nee Rogers). On the 1901 Census the Family of parents, Beatrice (born 1894), Ethel (born 1896) were living 59, Lessada Street, Bethnal Green.
Arthur’s mother Ellen died when he was two years old in 1902. His father married Ada Florence Brookes in 1903.
On the 1911 census Arthur was a schoolboy living with his father Henry Frederick Richards and stepmother Ada Florence, step sisters Blanche Violet (born 1903)and Margaret (born 1908) in Thornton Road, Little Heath, Potters Bar, Middx
Wartime Service
Arthur enlisted in the Royal Navy as a Chatham rating J/45298 Boy 2nd Class on 16 Sep 1915 at training ship (ex armoured cruiser) HMS Powerful at Devonport. He transferred to training ship HMS Impregnable (Howe previous to being named as a training ship) also at Devonport on 31 Oct 1915.
Arthur was promoted to Boy 1st Class on 8 Jan 1916. He was posted to scout cruiser (destroyer) HMS Blanche on 17 Sep 1916 at Scapa Flow. Arthur was posted to battleship HMS Vanguard also at Scapa Flow on 13 Nov 1916. Both this ships would engage in patrols in the North Sea. At 11.20 pm on 9 Jul 1917 HMS Vanguard exploded while at anchor in Scapa Flow, Orkney. A court of inquiry found no clear cause, but many consider that most likely a fire in an adjacent coal bunker had overheated cordite stored against the bulkhead in one of Vanguard’s magazines. The resulting explosion triggered other magazines and the ship was blown apart. Just 2 of 845 personnel on board survived. Arthur did not survive the explosion and he is remembered on the Chatham Naval Memorial, Chatham.
Acknowledgments
Neil Cooper
Martin Cope
