Offer:Look-up Liverpool (Mersey) Pilots 1734/1990

[BY]

Hi, Portlandlib- and welcome to the vast extended family of the LPS!

A pilot dismissed from the service in 1879  (or at any other time before or since) remained a free man, unrestricted by anything other than his own personal limitations and the laws which apply to everybody.

As to following another career at sea, that possibility would certainly be open to him. In realistic terms he would, however, be obliged to find a shipowner or shipmaster willing to employ him.

He could even buy his own vessel and use it for his own trade, if he could raise the capital to do so. Few pilots would have been in such a fortunate position, but it could not be ruled out as a possibility.

Although most pilots aspire to serve for life (because it is a most worthwhile career) others have discovered and confirmed happily that pilotage is not the only worthwhile career in life. In short, life is what you make it!

Hope this might help to answer your question.

Very best,

BY

[BY]

Hi, Portlandlib,

As to genealogy, I know of no LPS records which show any personal relationship between any two pilots.

Family matters were essentially private, as you can imagine, and it was mainly in the camaraderie  of the saloon on board a pilot-boat (if at all) that family gossip was exchanged and became known to others.  Father and son relationships were commonplace; others less so, but many existed.

As to genealogical records in the LPS over almost 250 years, however, that is where we are all reliant on the information kindly provided by vistors to this forum. Please keep it coming!

v best,

BY

[portlandlib]

What a fantastic resource this is! I have been reading a ww1 diary of a relative who visited Liverpool in Feb 1917, and stayed at Denton Dr. Seacombe with William and Annie Davies. The diary mentions son Alf was at sea at the time. On your site I have discovered the same "Alfred Davies" as a Pilot apprentice who was killed H.M.X "Alfred H. Read" At the Bar 28th Dec 1917 aged 21. I have now to read more about this tragic event.      The writer of the diary met his end in Sept of the same year near Ypres.   

Thanks to all who contribute research. 

[BY]

Many thanks to you, PL,

Very poignant.

BY

[glenburn]

What a fantastic resource this is! On your site I have discovered Alfred Davies as a Pilot apprentice who was killed H.M.X "Alfred H. Read" at the Bar 28th Dec 1917 aged 21.
Thanks to all who contribute research. 

Glad you found my link to the ALFRED H READ incident on this board useful, Jan, although you must have burrowed mighty deep to locate it!

You and I of course 'met' recently on another message board when I responded (in different guise) to your post concerning the Stanley Arms Hotel in Seacombe.   :-)

 

[ShaunJ]

My great uncle ALFRED ALEXANDER MACDONALD  KNOWLER, Pilot 1st Class,  was also lost with the Alfred H Read

[glenburn]

Alfred Davies, a Pilot apprentice, who was killed H.M.X "Alfred H. Read" At the Bar 28th Dec 1917 aged 21. I have now to read more about this tragic event. 

As anyone with relatives lost in this incident will tell you, it's virtually impossible to find any detailed information concerning the tragedy. I personally have spent many hours in the Liverpool Record Office scouring local newspapers of the day without any success whatsover.

According to the Times newpaper of Thursday 13 February 1930 there's a book entitled 'The Liverpool Roll of Honour' which has one page devoted to the loss of the ALFRED H READ - the article adding that this 'could not be disclosed during the period of hostilities'.
The book was to be installed in a special case, with a glass cover, in the Cenotaph in the (presumably Anglican) Cathedral. Every page of the Roll had been photographed and the photographs bound in three volumes which were (in 1930) open to the inspection of the public in Liverpool.
Not sure if this link will work if you're not a member of Lancashire County Library, but here goes anyway :-

http://url.ie/8s9r

I haven't as yet managed to establish whether the original Roll is still in situ, nor whether and where the bound volumes can still be accessed by the Liverpool public (of which I am one).

[glenburn]

For anyone unable to access it, the Times newspaper article of Thursday 13 February 1930 reads :-

Liverpool Roll of Honour

A Remarkable Book

The Liverpool Roll of Honour, a remarkable book containing the names of 42,000 men of Liverpool and district who fell in the Great War, reached Liverpool yesterday from London and will be placed in the Cenotaph in the Cathedral. Ten years have been needed for the preparation of the volume, which consists of 800 vellum pages, is 22in by 18in in size, 7in thick, and is magnificently illuminated.
The names include that of Lord Kitchener, who was a Freeman of the city, while general inclusion has been given to all men of Liverpool birth irrespective of the unit with which they served. The names are preceded by an illuminated double opening title page containing the following inscription signed by the King :-

‘They whom this volume commemorates were numbered among those who at the call of King and Country left all that was dear to them, endured hardness, faced danger, and finally passed out of the sight of men by the path of duty and self-sacrifice, giving up their lives that others might live in freedom.
Let others who come after them see to it that their Name be not forgotten.  – George RI’

The book is bound in cream vellum, and is fitted with three solid gold clasps and decorated with gold tooling. In the centre of each cover are grouped the arms of Lancaster and Chester and those of the Cathedral.
Most of the ships in the Royal Navy and many of the mercantile marine are to be found inscribed in the pages, while nearly every regiment of the Army is included.

One page recalls a tragedy of the War that could not be disclosed during the period of hostilities. On December 28, 1917, the Liverpool No 1 Pilot Boat, Alfred H Read, was torpedoed by the enemy off Liverpool Bar, and all the Mersey pilots, 20 in number, went down with her, together with other ratings.

Another tragedy which added many names to the Liverpool Roll was the sinking of the Lusitania.

The book is the largest single Roll of Honour in the country. It was commissioned in 1920, and Mr George Scruby spent 8½ years in the preparation of the pages. Mr Scruby has wide heraldic knowledge, and his task gave him opportunities which he has used with rich effect. Every page is illuminated in colour and burnished gold, and the introductory designs to each service and regiment have been beautifully carried out. The numerous recipients of the Victoria Cross among the recorded names are given special treatment., and the account of the act of conspicuous bravery which earned each decoration is set out in scarlet. The end page of the Roll bears the words ‘Their Names shall remain for ever, and their glory shall not be blotted out.’
Binding the sheets and the chasing of the clasps have required 18 months. The binding is the work of Mr George Sutcliffe, and is in keeping with the high standard of the illuminated pages. The book is to be installed in a special case, with a glass cover, in the Cathedral. Every page of the Roll has been photographed, and the photographs have been bound in three volumes, which are open to the inspection of the public in Liverpool.         
 
 

[BY]

In " A History of the Liverpool Pilotage Service" (1949) by JS Rees, a very slightly different (and probably more accurate) version is given of the loss of Alfred H Read, viz:-

"In the early hours of the morning of 28th December 1917, the Service suffered one of the greatest disasters that had ever befallen it, when No 1 Pilot Boat the ss Alfred H Read struck a mine on the Bar Station, sinking in a few minutes, and out of 41 souls on board only two were saved; 19 pilots, 8 apprentices and 12 others making the supreme sacrifice."

The "12 others" on board would have included her normal complement of engineers and catering staff (probably 6 or 8 at most) - thus showing 4 or 6 "others" who might well have been (and probably were) members of HM Examination Service - a body of Royal Naval personnel whose function was to examine the documentation of inward-bound vessels in wartime.

Of the two survivors, I do know that one of them was John Sweetman, then an apprentice pilot aged about 19.  He was licensed as a pilot in 1921 and later became Appropriated Pilot to the Blue Funnel Line. He retired in 1963 and died in 1969.

I have no information as to who the other survivor might have been.

As to whether Alfred H Read was torpedoed (as we are now told) or whether she struck a mine, much the more likely version is that she struck a mine because (a) the account is provided by JS Rees who had spent his entire working life as a Clerk in the Pilotage Office and therefore had access to all relevant contemporary records and (b) when considering submarine torpedo operations, the water in the region of the Bar is extremely shallow.

For my own part I am no expert in submarine operations, but have never heard of a report of any submarine (or enemy U boat) operating anywhere near the Bar. Neither do I know how any enemy mine came to be at the Bar. By enemy airborne operation, I suppose. Although airborne warfare was of course in its infancy in 1917, enemy aircraft over Merseyside were not unknown at the time.

Any further information would be most welcome.

v best,

BY

ps - John Sweetman was a notoriously heavy sleeper who is reliably reported to have said "The bang woke me up!"