Menu
Chief Stoker
William John Cornelius
"Will"
BEWERS
Royal Navy
Died On:
Aged:
25 April 1916
38
William Bewers was born on Marsh Farm in Woodham Ferrers, Essex, on 5 May 1876 to William and Mary Anne Bewers of Hockley. He was one of thirteen children. William married Violet Eva Grange in Runwell, Essex during August 1915.
He joined the Navy around 1898 and went to China during the Boxer Rebellion after which he was awarded the China Medal. At the time of his death he was the Chief Stoker in HMS E22. His brother Henry Robert was killed in the Somme later that same year.
William appears on the Chatham Naval Memorial, Panel 17, Wickford & Runwell War Memorial and St. Catherine’s War Memorial, Wickford.
VISITOR COMMENTS
One Response
William John Cornelius Bewers (known as Will), born 5 May 1876, was a career sailor and had joined the Royal Navy before the turn of the 20th Century.
William was a Chief Stoker on HM Submarine E22. The submarine was part of a naval experiment. It carried two Sopwith Seaplanes on its casing that would be floated and then sent to intercept Zeppelins. The experiment was eventually abandoned.
Whilst on surface manoeuvres, off Great Yarmouth, on 25 April 1916 his submarine was torpedoed and sunk. Only two men survived and uncle Will was killed.
Less than a year before this he married Eva Grange. She wrote to the Admiralty asking for information as he was originally just listed as missing.
I can’t imagine she got to spend much time with her new husband and the little news she received after he went missing must have been awful.
Will is my Grand Uncle.