He was the son of Isabella Bradford McKenzie, of 28 Suffolk St., Sunderland, and the late Martin McKenzie, and was born at Sunderland.
Linda Gowans has submitted the following:-
Thomas was born in late 1898, so would have been only 18 at the time of his death. His mother Isabella (née Norton), born Ryhope, was at 119 Herrington Street, Town, Sunderland, in the 1901 census, with son Thomas A., aged 2, daughter Elsie M., under 1 year, plus in-laws Gerard and Mary A. Norton. Martin McKenzie died in late 1911, though the family has not been traced in the 1911 census.
In 1914 Thomas was indentured at Sunderland (giving his true date of birth), and in 1915 was an apprentice on board the 3,568 GRT cargo steamer ‘Holly Branch’, built by Bartram & Sons of Sunderland in 1911 for the Nautilus Steam Shipping Co. The ship was captured by UB 39 and scuttled on January 1st, 1917, fourteen miles NE x N from the Île de Batz, Brittany: the crew survived, but we do not know if Thomas was still among them.
In April 1917 he was Third Mate on ‘Vine Branch’. A 3,442 GRT turret deck cargo steamer completed in 1896 by W. Doxford & Sons for Angier Bros. as ‘Imperialist’, she was briefly Clan Line’s ‘Clan Shaw’, before being acquired by the Nautilus Steam Shipping Co. and given her third and final name. She left Dakar after coaling, with a cargo including nitrate and frozen meat, and disappeared. The Admiralty intercepted a wireless message from a U-boat to Berlin giving a list of ships destroyed, and ‘Vine Branch’ was among them. It appears that she was torpedoed and sunk about April 11th, 1917, by German submarine U 55 south-west of Ireland. All 44 aboard her were lost, including Thomas.
The First World War section of the Tower Hill Memorial commemorates almost 12,000 Mercantile Marine casualties who have no grave but the sea. It was unveiled by Queen Mary on December 12th 1928. Eight of the men listed are also named on St. Gabriel’s memorial boards.
Thomas Arthur Frederick McKenzie is remembered at Sunderland on S140.009 (Mackenzie), S140.010 and S140.048 part 8 and on our List of Ships’ crews
