Name
John Bygrave
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
01/01/1915
28
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Mechanician
308718
Royal Navy
H.M.S. "Formidable"
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
CHATHAM NAVAL MEMORIAL
Panel II.
United Kingdom
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Holy Trinity Church Memorial Roll of Honour, Stevenage Old Town, Waterford Village Memorial, St Michael and All Angels Church Memorial, Waterford
Pre War
John was born on the 11th June 1886, in Waterford, Herts. the son of George and Mary Jane Bygrave. One of ten children. He was baptised on the 18th July 1886, in Bengeo, Herts.
The 1891 census records John aged 4, at school and living with his parents, 2 brothers and 2 sisters in Waterford. By 1901 John was 14, living with his parents, 2 brothers and 4 sisters in Waterford. John enlisted in the Royal Navy on the 24th August 1905, signing on for 12 years.
Wartime Service
John joined HMS Formidable on the 10th December 1914. From HMS Pembroke II.
HMS Formidable 15,250 tons, pre-Dreadnought Class Battleship, launched in 1898 and first commissioned in 1901, she was sunk by two torpedoes from the German submarine U24, (Under the Command of Kapitanleutnant Rudolf Schneider) off Start Point at 2 am on the 1st January 1915, while on exercises. The first torpedo hit the number one boiler port side; a second explosion caused the ship to list heavily to starboard. Huge waves thirty feet high lashed the stricken ship, with strong winds, rain and hail, sinking it in less than two hours. She sank in 180 feet of water about 37 miles off the Devon coast, the first British battleship to be sunk in the First World War. Captain Loxley, his second-in-command, Commander Ballard, and the signaller stayed at their posts throughout, sending flares and rockets off at regular intervals.
There was no panic, the men waiting calmly for the lifeboats to be lowered. Someone played ragtime on the piano, others sang. The Chaplain risked his life going below to find cigarettes. Suddenly the ship gave a tremendous lurch, the Captain shouted “Lads, this is the last, all hands for themselves, and may God bless you and guide you to safety”. He then walked to the forebridge, lit a cigarette and, with his terrier Bruce on duty at his side, waited for the end, in true Royal Naval tradition. The piano was thrown overboard and many of the boats were smashed as they were lowered into the water, killing all occupants, others were swamped and sank. Only 199 men were saved out of a complement of about 750 men.
John Bygrave was one of the many men lost that night, he has no known grave and is commemorated on the Chatham Naval Memorial to the missing.
Additional Information
John is also commemorated on the family grave in Waterford (St. Michael) Churchyard. His part of the inscription reads:
MECHN. JOHN BYGRAVE, R. N. DIED JAN. 1ST 1915, AGED 28 YEARS.
Acknowledgments
Stuart Osborne, Paul Johnson
