| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
Able Seaman Charles Arthur Nunn aged 30 was killed at the Battle of Jutland on 31 May 1916. His body was not recovered and he is remembered on the Chatham Naval Memorial in Kent. His ship, HMS Defence, was an armoured cruiser built in the early years of the century, the last indeed to be built for the Royal Navy. It was part of the First Cruiser Squadron based on Tyneside and was the flagship of Rear Admiral Sir Robert Arbuthnot. During the Battle of Jutland on the evening of 31 May 1916 she was escorting the main body of the British Grand Fleet and was fired upon by one German Battle-cruiser and Four German Dreadnought Battleships as she attempted to engage a disabled German cruiser, the SMS Wiesbaden. Defence was hit by two salvoes from the German ships which detonated her rear magazine and the fire from that explosion spread to her secondary magazines which exploded in turn. There were no survivors from her crew of approximately 900 men.
Charles was born in Sheffield on 11 Mar 1886. His family came from Beverley but spent a few years away before returning in 1891. Charles's father John W Nunn, born 1851 was originally from Suffolk and worked as a general labourer. He married Mary Elizabeth Cook at St Mary's Church in 1878. He had five siblings Dick, John , Kate, Gertrude and Harry. In the 1890s the family lived at Well Place, Well Lane in Beverley and then at 35 Mill Lane.
Charles was a farm worker, in 1891 he was a beastman on Grange Farm, Pighill, Molescroft. He later joined the North Eastern Railway working as a platelayer, latterly at Keyingham on the Hull to Withernsea line.On 20 Mar 1909 he married Mary Elizabeth Baron at Hull Registry Office. They had three children, Ivy, Edna and Muriel. They were living at 3 Lorne Terrace, Stanley Street, Hull when war was declared. Charles enlisted in Aug 1915 and joined the Grand Fleet on 21 Dec 1915.
Charles Arthur Nunn is remembered on the East Riding Memorial in Beverley Minster and on the Hengate War Memorial, Beverley. His widow remarried in 1925; her husband Thomas Hull was a marine fireman.
Includes photograph, information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |