The Rev. David Youngson has submitted the following:
Hector BENNETT
Mercantile Marine Master S.S. Manchuria
He was the son of the late Captain Thomas Waldon Bennett and Elizabeth Hester Bennett, nee Taylor. A Master Mariner giving his address as Lowestoft, he was Initiated into 1862 Stranton Lodge, Freemason’s Hall, West Hartlepool on the 20th July 1908; Passed 2nd February 1910 and Raised on the 4th May 1910. He was the husband of Ruth Alice Bennett (nee Emele) of Gamlakarlcoy, Finland.
He died on 17th October 1917 aged 37 and is remembered on the Tower Hill Memorial, London.
The S.S. Manchuria ship number 119877, (2997 GRT) was owned by Metcalf Simpson of West Hartlepool. She was carrying a cargo of iron ore, and was torpedoed by the German U Boat U 53, commanded by a Kapitänleutnant Hans Rose, sixty miles NW of Ushant on a voyage from La Goulette to Hartlepool with the loss of 26 lives.
Hector Bennett is remembered in our List of Ship Crews.
