Pauline Priano has submitted the following:-
John Thomas Knox was born 1895 at Sunderland, the only son of 5 known children born to Thomas Knox of Sunderland born 1867 and his wife Mary Ellen Peacock born 1871 at Newcastle-upon-Tyne and whom he married in 1890 in the district of South Shields. His father was employed in 1901 as an iron founder, the family were living at 79, Frederick Street, South Shields. April 1st 1903 Thomas Knox died aged 36 years, he was buried April 4th at Harton Cemetery, South Shields. His widow Mary remarried in 1905 to Joseph Young and with whom she had a further 2 sons. Joseph Young was an iron moulder at the shipyards, his step daughter Margaret (17) worked at a fried fish business, John Thomas (16) at a butchery business.
John Thomas Knox enlisted at Gateshead, May 8th 1915 as Private 4606 Durham Light Infantry assigned to the 3rd/9th Battalion and moved to Catterick where August 10th 1915 he was appointed paid Lance Corporal but reverted to Private at his own request, February 12th 1916.
Transferred as Private 45753 to the 1st/9th Battalion D.L.I., June 21st 1916, he departed as part of the British Expeditionary Force from Southampton to France June 22nd disembarking the following day at Le Havre to join the main body of the regiment that had departed in April 1915. Moved to the battlefields of the Somme, as part of the 151st Brigade, 50th Northumbrian Division, they first participated at the Battle of Flers-Coucelette.
September 10th 1916 he was transferred in the field to the 15th (Service) Battalion, 'D' Companyy also on the Somme as they returned to the dangerous routine of trench warfare after a period of rest. October 23rd he was taken to the 63rd Field Ambulance attached to the 21st Division suffering nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea and fever, once recovered he returned to his unit in the front line.
April 5th 1917 he sustained a gunshot wound to the knee and taken by the 96th Field Ambulance to the 32nd Casualty Clearing Station at Warlencourt, from there he was sent to the 3rd General Hospital at Le Treport on the Normandy coast. April 16th it was decided he should be sent back to England aboard HMT Donegal hired as a hospital ship. She sailed April 17th 1917 bound for England but was torpedoed by a German U-Boat UC-21 commanded by Oberleutnant zur See Reinhold Saltzwedel, and sunk between Le Havre and Southampton.
His mother was informed immediately by telegram that there was a possibility her son had drowned during the sinking of the Donegal, she in turn responded by letter, 'It is dreadful suspense waiting for news, I will therefore esteem it a great favour if you will send me any definite news you may have to hand'. It was later confirmed that Private 45753 John Thomas Knox was one of 22 wounded servicemen aboard the Donegal that had drowned April 17th 1917. He was 22 years old and single.
His sacrifice is recorded on the Hollybrook Memorial, Southampton, Hampshire, within Hollybrook Cemetery behind the WW1 graves. The memorial commemorates by name servicemen and women of the Commonwealth land and air forces’ whose graves are not known, many of whom were lost in transports or other vessels torpedoed or mined in home waters or buried at sea.
Mary Ellen received all monies due to him, a pension and his awards of the British War Medal and Victory Medal sent to her at 108, Wellington Street, Felling, Gateshead, County Durham.
In God’s safe keeping. Rest In Peace.
John Thomas Knox is remembered at Felling on F32.07
