HARMON, WILLIAM

HARMON, WILLIAM

Born Dublin, year/date of birth varies on records, 1939 register says 10/02/1893, but his Royal Naval Reserve record gives 14/04/1892 as his date of birth, whilst family records on Ancestry.co.uk agree with the day and month but give the year as 1891. Merchant Navy records meanwhile give the year as 1893 and 1894, so perhaps he made himself younger the older he got!

Died 03/01/1944, age 49 (although he was probably a few years older), Cleethorpes

Skipper, Royal Naval Reserve, H.M. Drifter Magnificent III

Family trees on Ancestry.co.uk give his parents’ names as John Fraser Harmon and Teresa Fitzgerald.

Husband of Ruby Beech (1898-1949), married 1919 in Grimsby

Father of Ruby (b 1922), John (b 1925), Joseph (b 1926), Theresa (b 1928), Terence (b 1931), Neta (b 1934, died in infancy), Violet (b 1936), Eileen (b 1938)

Address at time of death: 117 Park Street, Grimsby

William Harmon also served in the Royal Naval Reserve during the First World War. He enlisted on 23/11/1914 at Grimsby. His address at the time was 37 Lovett Street, Cleethorpes, the property of Mrs Wilkinson, where he rented a furnished room on the first floor.

He served on a number of vessels, including HMT Hercules, Pembroke, Satellite, Pekin and Solaire, from which he was demobilized at Stornoway Naval Base in May 1919.

His address at the end of the war is given as 70 Grafton Street, Grimsby.

The RNR record shows that he was eventually awarded the 1914-15 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal on 24/11/1925, which he was issued a fishing certificate as 2nd Hand no 15435 at Grimsby on 01/06/1921.

He is described as 5 ft 1in tall, with a fair complexion, grey eyes and a 38 inch chest. He had a sailor and gravestone tattooed on his right arm and a hand on hand on his left arm.

Magnificent III was a Nairn steam drifter registered at Inverness (INS 23), built by Mackie and Thomson of Govan in 1909). Magnificent III served in both wars and in World War II  as a boom defence vessel and was part of the Scapa Flow pool. Naval records show that in 1942 it was based at Scrabster, Thurso Bay, in Caithness and that it was based at Scapa from Nov 1939 to Nov 1944.

Grave ref: Section M, Grave A29