HMS Captain 1870         

 

Information and Memories from Descendants (cont)
 

Up John Collier Peter Baldwin T G Beenham John Bremner Thomas Butcher C W Dyer J Ellis George Fisher Wilfred Glanville John Gribble Albert Grover George Habens Walter Hedger Robert Herd John Hermitage Tom W Ivey Thomas Kernan RJ Magawley William May Francis Merryman GH Payne Edmund Powell Alfred Ripley Anthony Spiller Arthur Tregaskiss John Walker

 

John Bremner

 

My great-great-grandfather was John James Manley Bremner, and was serving on HMS Captain at the time of the disaster, and is believed to have been the ship’s Quartermaster. Aged 32 at the time of the disaster, he left a 2 year old son and a wife who was 6 months pregnant. The photo of John is dated May 1864, and was taken in Valpariso , Chile .

John’s father was originally from Banff in Scotland , but was press-ganged and re-settled in Plymouth . He was later to fight at Trafalgar onboard HMS Tonnant, and eventually out-lived his son.

John’s eldest son, Charles, went on to serve on HMS Terrible (a Powerful class cruiser) which was involved in The Relief of Ladysmith and The Boxer Rebellion. Charles was later at the Dardanelles Campaign on HMS Prince George (a Majestic pre-dreadnought battleship) on which he was Chief Gunner.

The youngest son, Jack, after his career an the Royal Navy, was one
of the founders of The Prince of Wales Sea Training Hostel in Limehouse,
 East London . This hostel was founded in 1920 at Limehouse in London , and was used to train boys for service as deck ratings in the Merchant Navy and was operated by the British Sailors Society. It eventually transferred to Dover in 1953 until its closure in 1975. During the Limehouse period HRH The Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII) paid special interest in the hostel and its running. (Try http://www.pwsts.org.uk/limehouse08.htm for photo) A total of 4,911 boys were trained at the school during its operation.

Clive Bremner, London (great-great-grandson)