People on board

HOUGH, Fred

Fred Hough was born on the 21st of January 1897 in Didsbury, Manchester to Peter Jackson Hough and Mary Hannah Garnett. Peter Hough had been first married to Ann Garnett and they had five children together. When Ann died in 1895 at the age of thirty-six Peter married Mary Hannah, most probably Ann’s cousin, the following year. Peter was a Commission Agent in the business of Dress Trimmings, Buttons etc. and the family lived in Northen Grove and then Palatine Road in West Didsbury. Sarah Garnett, Mary Hannah’s mother, lived with them until her death in 1911.

Fred Hough attended the William Hulme Grammar School in Manchester from 1909 to 1913 and was a promising cricket player. When his eldest half-brother William married it was noted that he was His Britannic Majesty’s Vice-Consul in Macedonia and during the war was a Captain in the Intelligence Department. Fred enlisted in the British Royal Naval Reserve in August 1916. He served as an Ordinary Rating on the Victory, the Excellent and the President and his Character and Ability were rated as Very Good.

In October 1918 he was serving as one of the three Gunners on RMS Leinster at a time when merchant ships were beginning to have guns on board to counter the submarine threat, though this policy proved of little use. Fred Hough did not survive the sinking though his body was recovered and he was buried in Grangegorman Military Cemetery in Dublin. His name is recorded on the Old Hulmeians War Memorial.