Lookup Request - Thomas Robert Packman

[jbml]

If anyone with access to the military records could do a quick lookup for me to let me know if there's anything worth seeing, or if this is one of those for which nothing worthwhile remains, I'd be ever so grateful.

Thomas Robert Packman
Royal Navy service number M 23475 (Po)
rank at death (15 July 1919): ERA 2c

[sgf28]

UK, Royal Navy Registers of Seamen's Services, 1853-1928 for Thomas Robert Packman gives details of all the ships he served on and physical description of Thomas(6ft tall).

[jbml]

That's brilliant - thanks, sgf.

I'd better find what package I need to get access to that ...

[ev]

National Archives has that record , you can download it for £3.45 -
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/royal-navy-ratings-service-records-1853-1928/



ev

[jbml]

Ooohhhh ... that's brilliant. Many thanks. Although ... perhaps I'll use it as an excuse to go and visit Kew and get the hang of the place ...

[Ellenmai]

On the WW1 Naval Casualties Transcription it states he was serving on the HMS Myrtle, Occupation Engine Fitter. Cause of death- killed as a direct result of enemy action, body not recovered for burial. Father Robert 111 Sherrett Road Forest Gate, London.

[mmm45]

If you have ancestry his record is on there

Ady

[jbml]

Thanks, Ellenmai.

VERY interesting that he is shown at that address. 111 Sherrard Road is the address where my widowed, great x2 grandfather, my great grandmother (his daughter), great grandfather, grandfather and various great uncles were living during the Great War, along with my great x2 grandfather's brother and sister-in-law (Thomas's parents).

I have not had any evidence, until now, of Thomas also living there ... I thought he had left home BEFORE his parents came to live in the (somewhat crowded) house at Sherrard Road. Of course, it may have only been his "official address" while serving in the Navy (in the 1911 census he is a 24 year old police constable living in a section house ... ), but even so. My great grandmother had no siblings (well, two older siblings who died in infancy; she never knew them) and I rather think that Thomas may have been a "surrogate older brother" to her as she was growing up. Their parents were evidently very close and his giving 111 Sherrard Road as his address (even if it IS mis-spelled!!) only goes to strengthen this impression.

I am also increasingly coming to the view that a vague family story of a relative (but nobody can quite identify which) in the merchant navy who was torpedoed in the Great War and went back to sea, but died shortly after the end of the war as a result of the sinking (the official story was "swallowing fuel oil" ... but merchant ships in the Great War would have been coal fired, so that evidently does not compute) is actually a garbled account of Thomas Packman's death when the Myrtle went down.


Thanks to Ady, too.

Unfortunately I don't have Ancestry ... but I know of some record offices and libraries that do ...

[Ellenmai]

Interesting story jbml it's amazing how family stories change so much from the actual facts.
That is Roberts address as the next of kin, so Thomas could have left home and lived elsewhere but as he went off to war his father's address would have been given.