Full list of Hampshire’s lost published today

Volunteers working to create a commemorative wall to those lost with HMS Hampshire off Orkney’s coast in the First World War are publishing a full list of names today, Thursday.

The 737 names of men who died when the warship sank on June5, 1916, will be engraved on the wall, together with the nine-man crew of HM Drifter Laurel Crown who were lost later the same month. Both ships struck mines.

HMS Hampshire was taking Earl Kitchener, Britain’s Secretary of State for War, to Russia for secret talks when she sank. There were only 12 survivors.

In 1926, the Kitchener Memorial, a 48-feet high stone tower overlooking the site of the sinking, was unveiled on cliffs at Marwick Head, on the Atlantic west coast of Mainland Orkney. It has a plaque which only makes brief reference to the men lost with Kitchener.

But volunteers with Orkney Heritage Society’s Kitchener & HMS Hampshire Memorial project believe the arc-shaped low wall, to be built alongside the memorial, will “better remember” all those lost.

It was long believed that 643 men from HMS Hampshire died, but research by Orkney historian Brian Budge discovered more than 730 men were lost, with many of the additional names being part of Kitchener’s party.

Project committee member Andrew Hollinrake, of Quoyloo, then spent many hours researching online, and trawling through hundreds of files at the National Archives in Kew, London, to arrive at a final figure of 737 men lost, including Kitchener.

The names are published today on the project’s blog – kitchenerhampshire.wordpress.com – and will appear any day on a new website, www.hmshampshire.org, which Andrew is creating.

Andrew explained: “The new website, for now, will just show a list of names. But we hope to have much more in the way of detail online later, including information and photographs we’ve gathered through our research, and from family members of the casualties.

“The final list of names comes from a number of sources including the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website, the National Archives at Kew, family history websites, relatives and newspaper archives.

“It has taken many hours of work but it is an honour to do this to remember the men from HMS Hampshire, Kitchener’s party and the Laurel Crown.

“I invite everyone with an interest in this project, particularly family members, to look at our list and please let us know if you think amendments are needed before the names are, literally, carved in stone.”

The proposed commemorative wall’s arc shape was chosen following a public consultation. The names will be engraved in block letters, arranged alphabetically in panels facing the memorial. There will be separate panels, within the wall, for Kitchener’s party and for the Laurel Crown crew, which included George Petrie from Burray.

The project team are also overseeing the restoration of the existing Kitchener Memorial to its original condition, retaining its iconic profile. Work on the pointing and the roof has already been completed by the contractors, Casey Construction Ltd.

The restored tower and the commemorative wall are to be officially unveiled at events marking the centenary of the sinking on Sunday, June 5, 2016. Relatives of those lost, including Kitchener, are expected to attend.

With less than six months to go until the centenary of the Hampshire’s sinking, the project members estimate they are more than 90 per cent of the way towards the funding needed for the restoration and the wall, with less than £10,000 still to find.

Anyone who wishes to donate towards the project can do so online at justgiving.com/orkneyheritagesociety.