People on board

BISHOP, Harry

Harry Bishop was born in early 1900 in Crewkerne, Somerset to George Bishop and Annie Pike. Harry was the eighth of their nine children, four of whom died in infancy. George Bishop was a General Labourer and the family lived on Barn Street and then Lyewater in the town of Crewkerne.  In the 1901 census Annie was a Washerwoman while their eldest daughter, Alice, aged fourteen was a ‘Shirt Ironer’. George died in February 1911 at the age of forty-eight and at that stage Harry and his younger brother Stanley were still at school. In the 1911 census Annie gave her occupation as Charwoman while the three eldest were ‘Machinists’ and a ‘Web Weaver’, presumably in the local webbing industry.

It is not known when Harry Bishop enlisted in the Scottish Horse but in October 1918 he was with the 2/1st Brigade which had moved to Ireland in April 1918 and was stationed in Limerick. He was presumably returning home on leave when he travelled on the 10th of October 1918 on RMS Leinster. He did not survive the sinking but his body was recovered and he was buried in Grangegorman Military Cemetery in Dublin.

There is a Memorial in Crewkerne to the 171 men from the town who fell in the 1st World War, though they are not named. However the British Trades Union Roll of Honour lists their members who lost their lives in the war and includes three men from Crewkerne, among them Harry Bishop. Unfortunately it does not name their trade.

Annie Bishop remarried in 1915 to John Hembury.