On Chatham Naval Memorial is the name of Tyneside Z/9276 Able Seaman Daniel Elliott Carss, serving on H.M.S. Mary Rose with the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve who died 17/10/1917.

He was the son of James and Annie Carss, of 22, The Square, South Craster, Lesbury, Northumberland.

Jean Longstaff has submitted the following:-

Daniel Elliot Carss was the youngest of the nine children born to local fisherman James Carss and his wife Annie (nee Waugh). His name taken from that of his maternal grandmother, Daniel was born on 12th May 1887 in Newton by the Sea and baptised in Embleton at the beginning of July. His older siblings were Mary Ann, John, Margaret Jane, James, Elizabeth, William, Joseph and Mabel.

After his father’s retirement, Daniel moved with his brothers Joseph and William to live with their parents in Victoria Terrace, Bedlington, where Daniel worked as a coal miner.

When Daniel enlisted in the Royal Naval Reserve on Tyneside on 22nd February 1916 he was working as a storekeeper, but gave that up to become Able Seaman Z/9276. His first posting was to Portsmouth at the shore establishment Victory IV , followed by two weeks at the RN gunnery school HMS Excellent, before joining the crew of the Mary Rose on 23rd August 1916. The Mary Rose was one of 20 M class destroyers commissioned by the Admiralty in 1914 and was built at Swan Hunter on the Tyne.

In 17th October 1916 the Mary Rose, along with HMS Strongbow were escorting a convoy of merchant ships from Norway. At dawn about 65 miles east of Lerwick in the Shetland Isles the captain observed two warships approaching, initially mistaking them for British ships, when in fact they were German cruisers SMS Brummer and SMS Bremse.

The Mary Rose and Strongbow were attacked and sunk by gunfire, along with nine of the twelve ships in the convoy. Very few of the 80-man crew survived, one of those lost was Able Seaman Daniel Carss.

Daniel Elliott Carss is remembered at Craster on C61.02 and C61.04, at Embleton on E27.01 and in our List of Ships’ Crews.