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| Training Ship Exmouth in 1905 |
As the 19th century turned into the 20th
Boards of Guardians all over England struggled to deal with the increasing
number of young people in their charge.
They tried to move children out of the Workhouses into Cottage or
Scattered Homes and from there, most of the girls went into service, but they were
anxious to find employment for the boys which would keep them out of
trouble. One solution was a Sail
Training Ship, a specialised kind of industrial school. I have been researching the boys from
Guildford who went to TS Exmouth at Grays in Essex. They were only accepted if they were
physically fit and the boys had to show willingness to undertake the
training. As this was a few years before
the First World War, many of these young men were in the navy or merchant navy
during that time. This is the story of a
few of them.
Percy Dewberry
Percy Dewberry was born in November 1900 at Stoke Hill Farm
Cottage, Guildford, as his father was a cowman.
Later the family moved to West Molesey but Percy’s mother, Matilda died
in 1907. Unable to cope with his four
youngest children, George put Percy into the care of the Guildford Board of Guardians and
in 1912 they sent him to TS Exmouth. He
remained there until 1915 when he became a signal boy on a transport ship. Later he worked as a deck hand on an oil tanker but
in 1921 he moved in with his older brother William, due to unemployment. Sadly,
a few months later, depressed by his lack of work, he tried to commit suicide
using a razor and when that was taken from him, he hanged himself from a beam.
George Larner
Originally baptised Lewis Leonard George Larner at St John’s
Church, Merrow in 1892, George was one of 9 surviving children of Thomas
Larner, soldier and his wife Mary Jane.
Mary Jane struggled to cope while her husband was away in the army and
in 1904, the four youngest were adopted by the Guildford Board of
Guardians. Rose and Violet were sent to
Dr Barnardo’s Girls Village in Barkingside and thence to Canada under the
British Home Children’s scheme. George
was sent to TS Exmouth while his brother went to the Gordon Boys’ school for
necessitous boys. In 1907, after a
year’s naval training, George was sent to the Royal Marine School of Music in
Eastney. During the first world war, he
was an army sergeant and in 1917 he died of wounds in Flanders.
Henry Algernon Leslie Longhurst
Harry Longhurst, born in the village of Shere in 1899, was taken into the
care of the Guardians with his two younger brothers after the death of his
father. Edward and Charles Longhurst
were put into the Scattered Home, Elsinore while Harry was sent to Newark Scattered Home in
Recreation Road, Guildford. He was sent to TS
Exmouth in 1912, where he stayed until 1915.
On discharge he joined SS Needwood.
He survived World War One but in 1940, he was killed on board SS
Ashcrest where he worked as a steward.
His name is listed on a memorial on Tower Hill in London.
Leonard John Norsworthy and Cecil E V Norsworthy
The members of one family were “scattered” in several homes
by 1911. They were the sons and
daughters of Samuel Norsworthy. Samuel
had been a contractor’s carman living in Quarry Street, Guildford with his wife
Annie and 7 children, until Annie died in childbirth in 1910. We find Samuel residing in Guildford Union
Workhouse in the 1911 census along with his 10 month old daughter Constance,
while two of his children, 11 year old Annie and 4 year old Ernest William are
next door in the Children’s Receiving Home.
Meanwhile 13 year old Leonard and 6 year old Henry Charles Norsworthy
are down in the town at Elsinore Scattered Home in Springfield Road. Nine year old Cecil Norsworthy was in another
scattered home, Newark in Recreation Road.
The oldest two children are at work; Selina as a housemaid in Weybridge
and Samuel Arthur working as a gardener on a fruit farm in Shalford.
Cecil Edward Victor Norsworthy resided at TS Exmouth from
1913 until 1917. He was selected by the
Royal Navy to serve on HMS Impregnable and remained in the navy until
1928. In 1930 he became a postman in
Reading, Berkshire but in 1938 he rejoined the navy until invalided out in
1941.
Sadly, his elder brother’s life was much shorter. Leonard John Norsworthy left TS Exmouth in
1913. Initially joining HMS Powerful he
later served on HMS Viknor as a telegraph boy, until he drowned when the vessel
was lost in the Irish Sea in January 1915.
Leonard was only 17. He is listed
on two memorials, one in the castle grounds in Guildford, his home town and
also on the Southsea Royal Naval Memorial to the Missing of World War Two. The Viknor was assigned to the 10th cruiser
squadron and was used to patrol the waters between Scotland and Iceland. For unknown reasons the ship, which had been
in wireless contact with shore, sank without ever sending a distress signal.
Germany had recently mined the area and there was also a violent storm at the
time. There were no survivors.
James Robert Sole
James Sole and his brother Thomas were orphans boarded out
from the Workhouse to Annie Hart of Merrow who was married to a railway
worker. After being discharged from TS
Exmouth in 1907 he joined the navy where he remained when war broke out. He married Alice who also lived in Merrow,
but in 1917 while manning the siege guns at Dunkerque he was killed by enemy
fire for which he posthumously received the Distinguished Service Medal.
