Jean Longstaff has submitted the following:-
Joseph, born on 20th January 1884, was the second son of George William Elvin, a dock labourer from Norfolk and his Stockton born wife Mary Ann Clark. They had married in the second quarter of 1878 in Stockton and started their married life in Portrack. By 1891 when Joseph was seven they were living on St. Ann’s Hill, Portrack with six children and Mary Ann’s father, a widower and retired brick layer. Ten years later 18 year old Joe was working at a coal yard and still living at home in Villiers Street with the rest of the family. On 11th February 1905 Joe married Charlotte Rosetta Bean, a local girl, and by the next census in 1911 he was an iron worker at a local steel plant and Charlotte was at home in Ryan Street with 3-year-old Joseph and 5-month old Charlotte, having lost two other children in infancy.
Joe was a member of the Royal Naval Reserve, and in 1917 was a stoker on board HMS Vanguard, a St Vincent-class dreadnought battleship launched in February 1909.The ship served in the 1st Battle Squadron during 1914, then in 4th Battle Squadron at the Battle of Jutland in May 1916. The ship was involved in action throughout its service but was generally on routine patrol and training in the North Sea.
Just before midnight on 9th July 1917 at Scapa Flow, Vanguard suffered an explosion, probably caused by an unnoticed fire heating cordite in one of the two magazines which served the midships gun turrets. The ship sank almost instantly, and there were only two survivors. In terms of loss of life, the destruction of the Vanguard remains the most catastrophic accidental explosion in the history of the UK, and one of the worst accidental losses of the Royal Navy.
Stoker 4932S Joe Elvin was one of the 804 men killed in the explosion. The bodies that could be recovered now lie in Lyness Royal Naval Cemetery, Hoy, Orkney, Scotland, where there is also a memorial. The site is now a designated war grave under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986. The men are also remembered on the Chatham Naval Memorial.
His wife Charlotte never remarried and died in 1957; all Joseph’s brothers survived the war.
Joseph Elvin is remembered at Stockton in S138.18 page 16 and on our List of Ships’ crews
