| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
Mark Hayton, born the 6 Aug 1894, one of three surviving children of Robert Spencer Hayton, a shepherd of Walkington and his wife Sarah Jane Gunness, who had fourteen children, eleven of whom died in childhood. The other surviving children were Bethel, born 1898 and Alice, born 1900.
After 1901 the family moved to 1 Thompson Place, Molescroft, three doors along from the Molescroft Inn. Mark was employed as a carter on a cattle farm. On 7 Jan 1916, at the age of twenty one, Mark joined the Royal Navy as an Ordinary Seaman. Initially he went to the Shore Station, HMS Victory for basic training, up to 13 Apr 1916. He joined his first ship, the destroyer HMS Sparrowhawk on 14 Apr 1916.
At the Battle of Jutland on 1 Jun 1916, HMS Sparrowhawk and other Royal Navy ships of the 4th Destroyer Flotilla engaged the German Dreadnought battleship SMS Westfalen. Gunfire from the Westfalen damaged HMS Broke which then accidentally rammed HMS Sparrowhawk. HMS Sparrowhawk was subsequently rammed again, this time by HMS Contest. An attempt was made to tow HMS Sparrowhawk to safety, the hawsers broke and in high seas and with reports of enemy submarines lurking nearby, a decision was made to abandon her and she was sunk by 18 shells fired by HMS Marksman. Six crew members of Sparrowhawk were killed in the collisions and the ship's pet, a dog named 'Rough' perished in the battle.
Mark was drafted to HMS Medina, serving there for five months before being returned to HMS Victory. He served thereafter on HMS Caradoc in the North Sea and the Baltic. He was demobilised as Able Bodied Seaman on 13 Feb 1919 when he came ashore and returned to his parents' house in Molescroft.
When the National Registration was taken in Sep 1939, Mark was a tenant at 42 Norwood, Beverley, the home of Lizzie Davey and her brother Thomas Davey, who were both born in Walkington. Mark was unmarried and a Public Works Contractor's labourer.
Mark Hayton died, aged eighty, in Beverley. He was buried on 20 Jan 1975 in Queensgate Cemetery.
Includes photograph, information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |