| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
James Burgess was born in Beverley on 26 Aug 1890 and baptised at St Mary’s Church on 15 Sep of that year. James was one of thirteen children (and five sons) born to Charles, originally from London, and Fanny Burgess (nee Skinner). The family lived at 8 Eastgate.
James joined the Royal Navy at Portsmouth on 12 Jan 1912. He was an ordinary and later an able-bodied seaman, was employed as a steward. In 1912-13 he served on the pre-Dreadnought battleship, HMS Venerable and then on HMS Hercules, a newer Dreadnought battleship in 1913-14, part of the Home/Grand Fleet. He spent the rest of his naval career on HMS Queen Elizabeth, launched in Portsmouth in 1913, one of the first oil rather than coal fired battleships in the Navy. The ship spent most of the war on routine patrols and on training exercises in the North Sea and in Feb 1917 became the flagship of the Home Fleet. Undergoing a refit, the ship didn’t take part in the Battle of Jutland in late May 1916 but did take part in the inconclusive naval action in the North Sea on 19 Aug 1916. Between late Feb 1915 and 14 May 1915 HMS Queen Elizabeth was deployed to the Dardenelles where it was used to bombard Turkish positions on the Gallipoli peninsula prior to the allied landings. Being vulnerable to Turkish mines and the German U-Boats it was sent home. James was awarded the 1914-15 Star and the War and Victory Medals. He was in the Royal Naval Reserve from 1919-1921.
On his return home James married Magdaline Speck, of Trinity Lane, at Beverley Minster on 21 Feb 1920. They had five children, the first, James, junior born in 1920. James was employed as a painter at this time and in the 1939 Register was recorded as a joiner’s labourer, living at No.14 18th Avenue, Hull. James died in Hull at the age of 76 in 1966; Magdaline died in 1973.
Includes photograph, information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |