| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
Harry was born in Beverley the 8 Jan 1893 and baptised at Beverley Minster the 2 Apr 1893, the son of Benjamin Lee Ramshaw and Jessie (nee Chapman), who married in 1891. Benjamin had been a confectioner but by the 1901 census he was a pork butcher and beer house proprietor at 21 Wednesday Market, Beverley. The premises were called the Spotted Cow and customers had to pass through the shop to buy a drink. It closed in 1937 but the pork butcher’s shop is still open today. Harry attended St Mary’s Boys’ School and was a member of the Beverley Cycling and Athletic club.
Harry joined the Royal Navy in Jan 1911 and signed on for 12 years’ service, later extended by another 4 years to 1927. He attended the Royal Navy Engine Room Artificers School at Torpoint, Cornwall, near the Royal Naval base at Devonport. The school was established to train Boy Artificers or “Boy Artificer Engineers” as they were properly called. Three naval hulks, basically redundant old vessels, were used for the training. Harry did pass out but his “advancement was delayed on account of unsatisfactory conduct” according to his naval records. They also show that he was 5’ 4” tall when he joined 5’7” by the time he finished his training. He was to spend much of the war on the Dreadnought battleship, HMS Bellerophon, part of the Home and Grand Fleets, patrolling in the North Sea and on training exercises. The ship was involved in the Battle of Jutland on 31 May 1916 and the inconclusive action on 19 Aug 1916. Harry was awarded the 1914-15 Star and the War and Victory Medals. After the war Harry was promoted to the rank of ERA (2). In 1920 he was sent out to the Far East to serve and travelled via Canada to reach the region.
On 21 Mar 1918 Harry married Winifred E Earnshaw at St Margaret’s Church, Plumstead, Greenwich, London, she was a wartime munitions worker and the daughter of a clerk at the Royal Military Academy. They had a son, John born in 1919. Harry’s occupation after leaving the navy is not known; his family is recorded as living at various addresses in the City of London. They later moved to East Sussex where Harry died in 1974. Winifred died in 1977.
Includes information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |