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Auction: 22001 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 215

'H.M.S. Princess Irene Blown to Atoms

Amazing Disaster

There is no news to-day which casts any light on the mystery of H.M. auxiliary ship the Princess Irene, the Canadian Pacific liner of 6,000 tons, which suddenly and from some unexplained cause blew up in Sheerness Harbour yesterday morning.

(Leicester Evening Mail, 28 May 1915 refers)

'... was observed to disappear in a veritable sheet of flame, This [SIC] shot upwards with a great roar, and this dying away, have place to a column of smoke, which hung over the spot for about fifteen minutes.

(Sheerness Times Guardian, 28 May 1925, refers)

The force of the explosion was so tremendous that it was felt for miles around the countryside, and some of the shipping in the harbour suffered severly.
The town of Sheerness was practically untouched, but Minster, some seven miles away from the spot where the explosion ocurred, suffered somewhat severly.
The workhouse situated on the top of the hill was shaken to its foundations, and the fixed windows of the boardroom of Sheppey Board of Guardians were bodily torn out and hurled to the ground. Just below the workhouse some windows were broken, and vases in the schoolrooms thrown on to the floors, while at Eastchurch the ceiling of an upper room in a farmhouse collapsed with the shock, and a packet of butter and two towels, bearing the words "Allan Line," stated to belong to the Princess Irene, were found in a Garden at Newington, eight miles away.
The whole body of the ill-fated vessel must have been torn out
Soon after the explosion a little girl named Hilda Johnson, aged 9, who was staying on holiday with relatives on the Isle of Grain, was picked up dead in a garden, having been struck on the head by a piece of iron found at the spot
Later a workman named George Bradley, 47, was discovered dead in a potato field on the Isle of Grain. His death was attributed to sudden shock.
Mr. Potter, an electrical fitter, died in hospital at Sheerness yesterday from injuries received through the debris from the Princess Irene falling on him at a thousand yards distant.

(Derry Journal, 31 May 1915, refers)

Four: Corporal A. Blake, Royal Marine Light Infantry, the N.C.O. commanding the Marine Detachment aboard H.M.S. Princess Irene who was killed along with all but one of the crew when that ship was destroyed in a mysterious explosion while at anchor at Sheerness on 27 May 1915

1914-15 Star (PO.14246. Cpl. A. Blake. R.M.L.I.); British War and Victory Medals (PO.14246 Cpl. A. Blake. R.M.L.I.); Great War Bronze Memorial Plaque (Arthur Blake), very fine (4)

Arthur Blake was born at Barnsbury, London on 29 August 1888 the son of Emma Blake. Working as a porter for a printing firm he enlisted on 6 September 1905 while he was still only 17. Blake had a chequered career being promoted Lance Corporal on three occasions and twice returning to Private, finally promoted Corporal on 29 January 1911 while serving with the Portsmouth Division. Blake later served aboard H.M.S. Good Hope- another ill-fated vessel, and H.M.S. Latona. Finally stationed aboard converted axillary minelayer H.M.S. Princess Irene on 8 March 1915, he was only N.C.O. in the eight-man marine detachment.

The Princess Irene was the second of four vessels to be destroyed by sudden internal explosions over the course of the war, this occurred on 27 May 1915 at 11:14. As the ship was taking on mines at the time the devastation was immense with a column of fire reportedly rising 300 feet into the air and a case of butter from the ship's galley was discovered six miles away in Rainham. Across the bay in the Isle of Grain a girl of nine was killed by falling wreckage and one man on a collier half a mile distant was killed when the ship was struck by a part of one of Princess Irene's boiler. People were injured in Sittingbourne and Bredhurst and human remains including severed heads were found to have been thrown as far as Hartlip and the Isle of Grain. Somehow despite the scale of the destruction one member of the crew survived, Stoker David Wills. Overall 352 people including the rest of the crew and a number of dockyard workers were killed.

Blake was among those dead and with the others killed in the disaster he is commemorated upon the Portsmouth Naval Memorial. The explosion was ruled an accident, caused by improperly primed mines being handled by untrained personnel. Notably the inquest into another ship destroyed at anchor by an explosion, H.M.S. Natal raised the possibility of sabotage, although nothing came of this; sold together with photographs of the Portsmouth Naval Memorial, Admiralty casualty lists and handwritten research along with a letter from the Admiralty to the Royal Marines listing the Marine casualties specifically as well as copied documents including Commonwealth War Graves details, service papers and a copied newspaper article.

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Sold for
£400

Starting price
£130