Henry Watson

Henry was born in Barnack in February 1895 and lived at 38 Main Street Barnack for the first few years of his life with his father Henry (a groom), mother Elizabeth and six siblings. Henry sadly died just after Harry started at the village school.

E lizabeth then brought her family to live at 1a Maltings Yard, Stamford. Harry transferred to St Martin’s school when he moved house but in June 1913 at the age of 18 he joined the Royal Navy. He became a First Class Stoker aboard the training ship ‘Victory’ and at the beginning of WW I he was posted to HMS ‘Irresistible’. Tragically he went down with the ship when she was sunk on 18 March 1915 in the Dardanelles bombardment (photo of the ship sinking, Imperial War Museum). He was just 20 years old, ‘a sharp bright young fellow to whom advancement in the navy came rapidly‘ reported the letter to his widowed mother from the Admiralty. His name is on the memorial panel of St Martin’s church.

His elder brother, Archer, born in Barnack in 1890, was a Private in the Lincolnshire Regiment, was also serving in the Dardanelles. ‘l often look over to the spot where the Irresistible went down and wonder where Harry is‘ he wrote in a letter home on 6 August 1915. The same day he went back into the firing line, was wounded and posted missing, later presumed dead.