On Tower Hill Memorial is the name of Master Samuel Robert Strickland serving on S.S. ‘Sunniside with the Mercantile Marine who died 09/11/1916.
He was the husband of Elizabeth Jane Strickland, of 26 Abingdon Street, Sunderland.
Linda Gowans has submitted the following:-
Samuel was born in Sunderland in 1859, the son of Master Mariner Henry Strickland from London and his wife Frances, from Dublin. Census forms show the family at 39 Henry Street in 1861, Addison Street in 1871, and in 1881 15 Ward Street. In 1885 he married Elizabeth Jane Knott in Sunderland. He was already pursuing a Merchant Navy career, indentured as an apprentice on March 16th 1872, aged 13, to L. A. V. Rudolphi of Sunderland for four years before gaining his Second Mates, First Mates and Masters certificates.
In 1891 his wife Elizabeth was at Mainsforth Terrace, Hendon, with two children. In about 1896 the family moved to High Barnes, and in 1901 were at 40 Chatsworth Street; also with them was Elizabeth’s widowed mother Eleanor Knott, a retired Confectioner.
By 1911 Elizabeth was at 207 Chester Road with eight children: her two oldest sons were working at a shipyard and an engine works and one of her daughters was a Dressmaker. As on previous census nights Samuel was away from home, this time at Dover, Master of the 530 GRT S.S. Harton built in 1872 by Blumer & Co. at North Dock, Sunderland, and owned by Hilton Philipson, Newcastle. He was one of 10 out of the 14 on board who were from Sunderland.
We know no more until 1916, when Samuel was Master of Sunniside, a 447 GRT cargo steamer completed in 1905 by Goole Shipbuilding & Repairing Co. for Wear Steam Shipping Co. of Sunderland, the new firm’s first ship. For a long time, she was in the Goole-Lowestoft trade, loading or discharging coals. From 1916 she was owned by Tower Steam Shipping Co. of London. On November 9th 1916, while en route from Hull to Rotterdam with a general cargo, at 00.45 she struck a mine laid by German submarine UC 4 approximately 4 miles ENE of Southwold, Suffolk, and sank within 3 minutes.
The ship’s fate, and her Master’s, was not at first known. The register British Armed Forces and Overseas Deaths and Burials (with Samuel’s address as 10 Chatsworth Street), states that he was killed or drowned, his ship mined or torpedoed. Later, it was established what had befallen Sunniside. Of the 13 on board four were lost, including Master Strickland and three Able Seamen. His son Norman survived to lose his own life on board ship almost exactly five years later.
Samuel Robert Strickland is remembered at Sunderland on S140.009, S140.010 and in S140.48 Part 8 and in our List of Ships’ Crews.
