HMS Captain 1870         

 

Information and Memories from Descendants (cont)
 

UpJohn 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

  

Thomas A  Kernan, one of the eighteen survivors  

Thomas Augustine Kernan was the eighth of the nine children, (six boys and three girls), of Edward and Frances Kernan. Edward, born in Co. Donegal, met his wife when he was stationed at Lepe Coastguard station, near Fawley, Hampshire.  Francis had long ancestory in the New Forest and one of her Wyatt ancestors built the first warship at Bucklers Hard.  

Edward served in the 5th Dragoon Guards, where he attained the rank of corporal. He was selected for the newly formed mounted branch of the Coastguard, and after eleven years service, Edward was serving at the coastguard station at Seasalter, Kent, when Thomas was born in 1852.  

Edward retired at Brighton in 1860 but sadly succumbed to tuberculosis shortly afterwards, leaving his wife with three boys under thirteen. Edward's pension died with him and this was no doubt the reason for Thomas, his elder brother Joseph, and younger brother Herbert, entering the Royal Navy as Boy Seamen. Perhaps their father's former colleagues made the suggestion, as The Coastguard was the main agent for recruiting seamen into the Royal Navy.  

Joseph subsequently became a merchant seaman and eventually rose to command a Southampton-based cross-channel ferry of the Southern Railway Company. Herbert died in a Malta Hospital in 1872.  

Whilst Thomas's service on the Royal Yacht was widely known within the family, no anecdotes have been handed down about the sinking of HMS Captain. But Thomas also had another secret - he was two years younger to the day than he stated upon enlistment. His brother Joseph practised exactly the same deceit and one can only assume that it was the poverty of their situation following the death of their father that caused them to give a false age.  

The suspicion remains that Thomas was given special treatment after the sinking of Captain. Apart from training as a rigger and eleven months on HMS Asia, he served on the Royal Yacht from 1874 to his retirement in 1893. He then obtained secure employment in the Naval Dockyard, where his children’s marriage records show he was a Chargeman of Labourers in 1907 and Traffic Manager in 1909. He died in 1925.  

Thomas married Kate Toogood in 1875 and they had five children. The eldest, Herbert William was born within a few months of his parent's wedding in 1875, followed by Beatrice 1878, Frank 1881, Percy 1884, Alexander Alfonso 1886 and Victoria about 1889.  

 

Geoffrey Kernan – great nephew"