On Portsmouth Naval Memorial is the name of K/17692 Stoker 1st Class William Davies, serving on H.M.S. Invincible with the Royal Navy who died 31/05/1916.

Jean Longstaff has submitted the following:-
On 11th November 1890 Henry Davies, Witton Park born landlord of the Lord Clyde in Throston, Hartlepool married Mary Hauxwell Horsley, daughter of the landlord of the Blue Anchor in Sandwell Chare at Holy Trinity Church.  Their first son George was born the following year, Henry in 1893 and William on 25th July 1894, followed by Arthur, Charlotte and Norman in 1905.

Mary Davies died in 1909 and by 1911 Henry had given up the pub and was running a newsagent’s shop in Claremont Terrace, Norton on Tees.  The six siblings still lived with their father, with William and Henry working as engine cleaners for the North Eastern Railway.

January 12tth 1913 saw William enlisting in the Royal Navy for a period of 12 years and his first posting as a Stoker 2nd Class was at training ship HMS Victory 2 based in Portsmouth.  He first went to sea on board the cruiser HMS Edgar and in August 1914 transferred as Stoker 1st Class to battlecruiser HMS Invincible.

He would have seen his first action later that month in the Battle of Heligoland Bight and then the Battle of the Falkland Islands returning to England in February 1915.  The next major engagement of the Invincible was at the Battle of Jutland where she was sunk by a German shell on 31st May 1916 and sank in less than a minute, with only six survivors, William Davies was not one of them.

Acknowledgments: Barney Rice; Rev. David Youngson

William Davies is remembered at Norton on N68.02,  at Stockton in S138.18 page 13, and on our List of Ships’ crews.