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The Battle of Jutland - finding Uncle Jake

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Family history and genealogy is a passion of mine that goes back years. I have been very fortunate that much research has been done on my father's side of family, Boxer, and having so much knowledge on who we are and where we came from is fascinating. However reading history is only half the fun. The other side is playing detective and trying to piece together family stories with family history; which is equally exciting. I have found houses that relations have lived in and schools that they have studied in; and suddenly the sense of belonging to a bigger world is overwhelming. What I am about to tell you below is a prime example of what makes researching family history so much more than reading history books.

Over the weekend, the national news has been full of stories about the 100 year anniversary of the Battle of Jutland, which took place on 31 May 1916. As the Boxer family have a long connection with the Royal Navy, there has always been something significant about this World War 1 Battle, but it is unclear of the role my Great Grandpa, Herbert Boxer, played at Jutland. However, over a cup of tea with my dad at the weekend, my dad said that he remembered family talking about an Uncle Jake who survived Jutland; but he wasn't sure as he had been told this about 50 years ago. This was a mystery that needed solving.

Once back in Edinburgh the trusted Family Tree folder came out and the hunt began. Dad knew that the relative in question was on the Boxer side rather than his mother's side. He was right. Having looked through the different branches of family, I had pin pointed the Woolhouse Family. Woolhouse is the maiden name of my Great Granny, Dorothy Boxer. My Great Granny was the youngest daughter of her generation and her older sister, Margaret Rose, had been married to two Royal Navy officers in her lifetime (she lived to be 100); Richard Hector Carter and Herbert Jackman. The Battle of Jutland was about to become very personal indeed.

Margaret Rose's first husband, Richard Hector Carter, was a paymaster in the Royal Navy and had married my Dad's Great Aunt in 1909. This is very significant for our family as my Great Grandpa was also a paymaster in the Royal Navy so the two sisters had married naval officers of similar rank within a year of each other. Without too much creative licence you can imagine that the sisters and their husbands were friends and shared the same network. Their older children were all born before the war in alternate years and there was a great family network there.

However, this was all to end abruptly as 100 years ago today Richard Hector Carter was on board HMS Defence at the Battle of Jutland, one of the 14 British ships that sunk during the battle. HMS Defence was fired upon by one German battlecruiser and four dreadnoughts as she attempted to engage a disable German light cruiser. She was struck by two salvoes from the German ships that detonated her rear magazine. The fire from that explosion spread to the ships's secondary magazine, which in turn exploded. There were no survivors.

When I read this yesterday, I was choked up as I realised that there is a family grave in the sea at Jutland and there are maybe more that I still don't know about. I once heard Simon Weston talk about the horrors of his experience in the Falklands; an account so vivid I could feel the flames. Due to this I hope that death was instant for Richard Hector and the rest of the crew as it doesn't bear thinking about what they might have suffered after being hit.

After finding all this out; I phoned my dad to tell him about this discovery and although we don't know, as yet, whether  Herbert Jackman also fought at  Jutland, there is a distinct possibility that when Dad was first told this story, he hadn't appreciated that he had two great uncles. I am a bit blown away by being able to discover all this information within a few searches and we can remember today's anniversary not just on the national level; but as an event that changed our family forever.