Name
Arthur Charles Attwood
4 Jan 1881
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
01/11/1914
34
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Gunner
RMA/8077
Royal Navy/Royal Marines Artillery
HMS Good Hope
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
PORTSMOUTH NAVAL MEMORIAL
5
United Kingdom
Headstone Inscription
No Report
UK & Other Memorials
Abbots Langley Village Memorial, St. Lawrence Church Memorial, Abbots Langley, Church of St Nicholas Memorial, Harpenden, Watford Post Office Memorial (*1), Not on the St Albans memorials
Biography
Arthur Charles Attwood was born in St Albans on 4th January 1881 in St Alban’s, and baptised 16 July 1886 at St Alban’s Abbey to Jesse Attwod and Hannah Maria (nee Pocock).
His parents married 10 April 1875 at St Peter’s, St Alban’s, Herts. Hannah died 1885 in the St Alban’s district aged 31, and was buried 11 April at St Alban’s Abbey. Jesse remarried 1890 in the Brentford, Middx, district to Ann WHITE, and died 18 September 1920 in Whitechapel, London, aged 67.
He enlisted for 12 Years in the Royal Navy on 11 Apr 1899 and was rated as Gunner.(Since 1908 at least one Turret or Gun on a ship has been manned by Royal Marines Artillery using Army ranks, and Arthur passed for Bombardier in 1909.) The 1901 Census listed him, aged 20, serving with HMS “Benbow” at Keyham Dockyard, Devonport, and ten years later the 1911 Census recorded him serving with HMS “Minotaur” docked at Hong Kong. At the end of his 12 years service he was transferred to the Naval Reserve on 3 Aug 1911.
He has a mention in The London Gazette dated 1 December 1911, and was appointed Postman Northwood August 1912.
On 13 Jul 1914 he was recalled from reserve and posted to HMS “Good Hope”. He was classed as Gun Layer 1st Class.
At the end of October 1914, HMS “Good Hope” was part of a Royal Navy Squadron of four ships commanded by Rear Admiral Sir Christopher Craddock. HMS “Good Hope” was a Drake Class Armoured Cruiser, and the flag-ship of Rear Admiral Craddock. The British ships had been sent to the west coast of South America to counter the German East Asia Squadron, commanded by Vice Admiral Graf Maximillian von Spee.
Throughout the afternoon of 1st November the two squadrons clashed off the coast of Chile at the Battle of Coronel. The British ships were out-gunned. HMS “Good Hope” took thirty-five hits, caught fire, exploded, broke apart and sank. There were no survivors from the crew of around 900 seamen.
Arthur was listed in the Abbots Langley Roll of Honour, commemorated on the Abbots Langley War Memorial and also on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial.
The Abbots Langley Parish Magazine recorded that “Arthur Charles Attwood was lost in the ill-fated ‘Good Hope’ off the coast of Chile on November 1st, when some 900 lives were lost. He leaves a wife and two little girls to mourn his loss.”
He married Kate Giffen on 3 August 1908 at St Lawrence’s, Abbot’s Langley, and at the time of his death she was living at Numbers Farm, Abbots Langley. By the time that the National Roll of the Great War was compiled in 1920 Arthur’s address was given as 38 Waterside, Kings Langley, and it is presumed that this would have been where his widow was living at that time. No reference was made to Arthur in the Kings Langley records, and he was not included on the Kings Langley War Memorial.
Kate never remarried; she died 1952 in Watford aged 74, and was buried 29 December in North Watford Cemetery.
Acknowledgments
Jonty Wild, Neil Cooper
Roger Yapp - www.backtothefront.org, Gareth Hughes, Sue Carter (Research) and Watford Museum (ROH online via www.ourwatfordhistory.org.uk)
