Roll of Honour

Lost on the Armoured Cruiser HMS Good Hope.

William Darnell was born in West Hartlepool on 8th December, 1892, his parents being William Henry Darnell and his wife Catherine Loynes, who were married in Hartlepool in 1888. William Darnell senior was born in either West Hartlepool or Wheatley Hill around 1867 as both places are declared on different census returns. Catherine was a native of East Hartlepool which was the Headland area. The couple had 8 children and 6 survived infancy. William was probably the third oldest of them.

In 1911 William's father is recorded as a dock labourer with the family living in Angus Street. By 1901 he was a gas works labourer and the family were now living in Alfred Street.  
William senior's parents had not been natives of Hartlepool and had moved around the North-East of England quite a lot. The 1881 Census shows William senior's father, John, was a slaughterman born in Staindrop and his wife Elizabeth was born in Seghill Northumberland. Their children at the time had been born in New York (Northumberland), York, Middlesbrough and Wheatley Hill, as well as West Hartlepool.

William Henry Darnell served as a Stoker, 1st class, on the Drake-class Armoured Cruiser HMS Good Hope and was lost, along with almost 1600 men in the Battle of Coronel on the coast of Chile on 1st November 1914. There is a dedicated website to this at www.coronel.org.uk and William Henry' name is on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial.

William's father, Henry (William Henry snr), was living at 37, Slater  Street, West Hartlepool, at the time of his son's death.