George Smith

This George Smith (not to be confused with the Dorsetshire Regiment man here) was among the first to join the Royal Navy in September 1914, along with the other Wheatley man - Gerald Chapman - who died and those who survived, such as Angus and Douglas Curry and Charles Life. He was listed as a stoker on HMS Invincible and was later assigned to HMS Black Prince. The Oxford Times reported on 26 September 1916 the drowning of a stoker, George Smith, when the latter ship went down at Jutland. It was a Duke of Edinburgh-class armoured cruiser built for the Royal Navy in the mid-1900s. She was stationed in the Mediterranean when the First World War began and had participated in the pursuit of the German battlecruiser SMS Goeben and light cruiser SMS Breslau. After the German ships reached Ottoman waters, Black Prince was sent to the Red Sea in mid-August to protect troop convoys arriving from India and to search for German merchant ships. After capturing two, it was transferred to the Grand Fleet in December 1914 and was sunk during the Battle of Jutland in May 1916, with all hands lost.