| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
Albert Dixon was born in Beverley 18 Jun 1883. The youngest of seven children born to John Noon Dixon and Mary Ann Clubley , both of whom were from Beverley and who married in 1867. The family home in 1891 was at Elm Grove, Holme Church Lane but later 1 St Nicholas’ Road, Beverley became the long term family home. Albert attended the Minster Boys’ School and in 1894 moved to the Wesleyan School, Spencer Street.
On 28 Jan 1901 Albert joined the Royal Navy at the Chatham dockyard as a stoker. He re-enlisted in Jan 1913. In his early naval career he sailed on cruisers such as HMS Pactolus, Attentive and Pathfinder as well the battleship, HMS Albemarle. He spent time in the Far East as part of the China Station on the destroyer HMS Virago and was recorded in the Royal Dockyard in Hong Kong in the 1911 census. In early 1915 after attending the Royal Arthur Training School, Ingoldmells he was promoted to the rank of Chief Stoker and served for much of the war on the cruiser HMS Blonde, attached to the 4th Battle Squadron of the Grand Fleet based at Scapa Flow. HMS Blonde was being refitted in early 1916 and so missed the Battle of Jutland fought in May of that year. Albert remained in the navy until Jun 1922. He was awarded the 1914-15 Star and the War and Victory medals.
After the war Albert returned to Beverley and worked as boiler fireman in the town. On 4 Jul 1946 at Beverley Minster Albert married Ethel Holgate, of Beverley whose father had been a waterman on the Beck. They did not have any children. Albert died, aged 78, on 22 Jun 1961 at Driffield General Hospital and was buried at Beverley’s Queensgate Cemetery two days later. Ethel died at Molescroft Court, Molescroft Road on 17 Sep 1985 shortly after her 100th birthday.
Albert is remembered on the Grovehill Road Street Shrine in Beverley.
Includes photograph, information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |