| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
Percy Stephenson served in the Merchant Navy, a joiner by trade he served as a (Marconi) Wireless Operator. He was awarded the British War Medal and the Mercantile Marine Medal, established in 1919 by the Board of Trade for “mariners of the Merchant Navy who had made one or more voyages through a war or danger zone during the course of the war”. The Merchant Navy suffered heavy losses in 1917 after the German decision to embark on unrestricted submarine warfare (a decision which brought the US into the war) and brought about the belated introduction of convoys to beat the U-boat threat. A photo of Percy, in uniform, appeared in the Beverley Guardian in Feb 1918.
Percy was born in Beverley the 12 Nov 1897 and baptised in Beverley Minster the 8 Dec 1897, the son of Fred Stephenson and his wife Annie Mary Southwick Taylor, both from Beverley. The family lived at 37 Eastgate, Beverley. Percy also lived at Jubilee Terrace, Minstermoorgate and No 1 Long Lane/Keldgate. Fred was a bricklayer. After the war Percy returned to his trade and lived with his parents through the 1920s.
On 23 Jul 1929 Percy married Mary Emma Houlden at Beverley Minster, they had a daughter, Barbara born 1933. In the 1939 Register Percy is recorded as a “Builder’s and General Clerk”, living in Manor Road, Beverley. He died on 23 Nov 1983 in Shincliffe, Co Durham. His wife died in 1975 in Beverley.
Includes photograph. information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |