SHIP’S MASTER GEORGE EDWARD ANDREW, MERCHANTILE MARINE, STEAMSHIP MONTEBELLO. LOST AT SEA 21st JUNE 1918 AGED 49 YEARS.


SHIP’S MASTER GEORGE EDWARD ANDREW, MERCHANTILE MARINE, STEAMSHIP MONTEBELLO. LOST AT SEA 21st JUNE 1918 AGED 49 YEARS.

George Andrew was born in Howden Workhouse in East Yorkshire where his father Henry was the Master and his mother Ellen the Matron. The youngest of five children he lived in the workhouse throughout his childhood, although, he would have suffered none of the privations that were imposed upon the inmates. Evidence suggests that George joined the Merchant Navy when he was about 15 as an apprentice sailing out of the port at Greenock in Scotland. In 1896 he had qualified as a First Mate and two years later as Master, which would have allowed him to captain ships from Britain to foreign ports. It appears that he then worked for Thomas Wilson Sons and Co, who owned a large fleet of ships mostly operating out of Hull.


It is believed that George married a woman called Annie Precious in Poplar London in 1901 and by 1913 her name appears on the electoral register for Ilkley when she was living at 13 Alexandra Crescent. She would remain at the house till well after the war and seems to have spend much of her remaining life in the town.

In June 1918 George took charge of the SS Montebello a 4.324 ton steamer which had been built in 1911 in Hull. The ship set sail from London bound for Hampton Roads Virginia, USA. Travelling on its own and not in a convoy it was 320 miles of the French coast at Ushant when it was spotted by the U100 captained by Degenhaut von Loe. He attacked using torpedoes which struck and sank the ship. All 41 crew members were lost including George Andrew.

Sadly, George Andrew’s name is not recorded on our war memorial which may be because he was not a member of the armed forces. However, his name if on the Tower Hill Memorial to the missing of the Merchant Navy and Fishing Fleets who have no grave but the sea.




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