On Tower Hill Memorial, London is the name of Assistant Steward/Cabin Boy Bertram Thompson Rumney serving on Pilot Cutter Protector with the Lighthouse and Pilotage Authorities who died 31/12/1916.
Bertram Thompson Rumney, born 10th September 1901, was the son of seven children to a William Rumney, born 1876, died 1954 and Isabella nee Thompson Rumney. They were married 22nd June 1897, St Hilda’s, South Shields.
The other children were:-
Herbert Rumney, born 1898, died Killed in Action 15th November 1916.
Mary Thompson Rumney, born 1899.
Hannah Rumney, born 1904.
John Thompson, Born 1909.
Isabella Rumney, born 1911.
Thomas Rumney, born 1913.
In 1911, they were residing at 18 Trinity Street, North Shields. By 1921, Delaval Terrace, Blyth.
On New Year’s Eve, 31st December 1916, the Tyne pilot cutter Protector was destroyed by a German mine at the mouth of the River Tyne, killing all 19 men on board. The 200-ton steamer was serving the port of Tyne, guiding vessels through hazardous, mined waters during WWI. The loss was a devastating blow to the tight-knit Tyneside maritime community, leaving 33 children fatherless.
The Protector was waiting to transfer pilots to ships entering the Tyne when it hit a mine, likely laid by German submarine UC-31, commanded by Kapitänleutnant Otto von Schrader.
All 19 men on board perished, including 10 pilots, four pilot assistants, and five crew members.
The crew was mostly from North and South Shields. Victims included 70-year-old pilot Robert Phillips and his grandson Ralph Phillips, representing the interlinked nature of the families involved. The youngest was 16-year-old cabin boy Benjamin Rumney.
Aftermath: The explosion was so severe that only one body, that of Robert Phillips, was ever recovered, found in March 1917.
“There was a noise as if it was a volcano and all they saw was a column of water and smoke and the pilot cutter was no more,” says Bill Watson, whose uncle Ralph Phillips and great-grandfather Robert Phillips were on board.
Sources; James Hoy Archive; Northumbrian WW1 Project; Bill Watson 2012; BBC; British Newspaper Archive; The Pilots Log: Find A Grave; BBC
Bertram Thompson Rumney is remembered at North Shields on N34.16 and N34.77, panel 10, at South Shields on S86.030, as Benjamin, and S86.062, at Tynemouth in T36.14, page 23, also at Newcastle on NUT221, and in our List of Ships‘ Crews.
