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Auction: 18003 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 349

Three: Leading Stoker F. E. Hornblower, Royal Navy, who died of influenza on 13 September 1918, whilst serving aboard the pre-dreadnought battleship H.M.S. Africa off the coast of Sierra Leone - by the time Africa hauled down her quarantine flag on 30 September 1918, 52 crew members had died of illness

1914-15 Star (K. 11836. F. E. Hornblower. Act. L. Sto. R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (K. 11836 F. E. Hornblower. L. Sto. R.N.), good very fine (3)


Frederick Edwin Hornblower was born on 26 April 1892 at Newington Butts, London, the son of Mrs. A. Hornblower of 14 Tyers Terrace, Vauxhall. A warehouse porter by trade, he enlisted in the Royal Navy at Chatham on 28 July 1911 and served aboard the Invincible-class battlecruiser H.M.S. Indomitable from 4 June 1912 to 31 December 1912. Returning to Chatham for a little over a year, he was then posted to H.M.S. Africa on 15 April 1914 and was engaged in regular sweeps of the English Channel and Northern Patrol; during such patrols, Africa and her sister ships often steamed at the head of divisions of the far more valuable dreadnoughts, where they could watch for mines or be the first to strike them.

H.M.S. Africa was refitted at Gibraltar in March 1917 and her four 6-inch guns were raised a deck higher as the original siting meant they were awash in even moderately rough weather. She was then attached to the 9th Cruiser Squadron for service in the Atlantic patrol and for convoy escort duties between Sierra Leone and Cape Town. In September 1918, whilst anchored off Freetown, some of her crew became extremely ill due to the influenza pandemic that broke out that year; their numbers virtually doubled each day from less than a handful at the start of the month, until 9 September when 76 crew members were reported ill; on that day, Painter 1st Class W. N. Duckmanton died of pneumonia following a case of influenza. Five more crewmen died on 12 September. The next day, another eight perished. On 14 September, 10 more crewmen died; Africa sent burial parties ashore daily and the ship was put into quarantine.

The influenza epidemic ultimately claimed the lives of an officer and 51 ratings in little over a week, including Frederick; interestingly, the statistics indicate a disproportionate number of deaths amongst the stokers and those 'below decks', commensurate with crowded mess decks and the transmission of the disease through sneezing and coughing in confined spaces.

Frederick was 26 years of age and is buried in Freetown (King Tom) Cemetery, Sierra Leone; sold with original metal identity disc impressed 'K11836, C.E. Sto. 1Cl. F. E. Hornblower.'


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