On Chatham Naval Memorial is the name of 7645S Stoker William Arthur Wright, serving on H.M.S. Caribbean with the Royal Naval Reserve who died 27/09/1915.

The son of George Thomas and Mary Jane Wright, of 2, Ida Street, Norton on Tees.

Jean Longstaff has submitted the following:-
William Arthur Wright was born on Boxing Day 1893 to iron moulder George Thomas and Mary Jane (nee Anderson) Wright. The family lived first at 19 Lumsden Street, Thornaby with Mary Jane’s parents George and Fanny Anderson, her two sisters Florence and Elizabeth and their three children William, Florence and John.  By 1911 the family had moved to 34 Teesdale Street where William, now an apprentice moulder lived with his parents and three siblings, Florence, John and two year old George.

He enlisted in the Royal Naval Reserve as a Stoker, service number 7645S, and was serving on HMS “Caribbean“,  previously the liner R.M.S. Dunottar Castle, converted for use as an Armed Merchant Cruiser in the Royal Navy.

On the way to Scapa Flow on 27th September 1915 it was sunk in high seas off Cape Wrath, Scotland with the loss of 15 crew.

The ensuing Court of Enquiry later blamed the ship’s carpenter for being insufficiently familiar with the ship and for failing to shut all the scuttles, like most of the crew, he had joined the ship just 10 days earlier.

Acknowledgements: Barney Rice

William Arthur Wright is remembered at Norton on N68.02,  at Stockton in S138.18 page 64 and in our List of Ships’ Crews.