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Roll of Honour

Hartlepool seafarers lost at sea

Gilmore, Joseph

Stoker
24, Robinson Street, West Hartlepool
West Hartlepool
22/8/1893
31/5/1916

Lost on HMS Indefatigable.

Joseph Gilmore was born on August 22nd 1893 in Hartlepool to Thomas and his wife Emily (nee Mann) They had married on October 22nd 1882.  Thomas was a Hartlepool born pavier (as was his father who had been born in Sligo Ireland) and in 1891 just prior to Joseph's birth, they lived in Mozart Street. There were a number of children of the marriage but it does seem that the family were split by the end of the 1890s.

Mother Emily seems to have died aged 36 on 28th December in Hartlepool Workhouse, but currently no record has been found of Thomas Gilmore.

However, it seems that in 1901, Joseph Gilmore at 17 was a miner boarding with a family at Dawdon near Seaham. His older brother Thomas Henry was an inmate at Stannington North East Reformatory in Northumberland. His sister Sarah was in Cannon Street Middlesbrough as neice of George Riches and sister Emily also in Middlesbrough as neice of Mary Gargland.

Joseph joined the RNR and was killed on HMS Indefatigable and on 31st May 1916, the ship was hit by Von Der Tann during the Battle of Jutland and only 2 of the 1019 crew survived.

Joseph's body was not recovered and his older brother Thomas Henry,who had been an inmate at Stannington, was informed of his death at his home in Bennett St Newport Middlesbrough. Joseph is remembered on the Chatham War Memorial.