Quest to find pictures of Vanguard crew nears milestone

Wendy Sadler's great uncle Henry and Walter Hattersley

A project to trace pictures of men and boys who served on HMS Vanguard has found images of almost a quarter of the crew.

More than 800 people died when a series of internal explosions destroyed the battleship in Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands on the night of 9 July 1917.

Wendy Sadler began the research when she found a picture of her great uncle and another marine from the ship.

The centenary of the tragedy was marked last year in Orkney.

Wendy told BBC Radio Orkney: "I'd always known my great uncle died at a young age on the ship, but it was that milestone that really spurred on looking for the rest of the crew, when the first photo was of him with another marine."

More than 800 men and boys died when the Vanguard was sunk by a series of internal explosions

Since starting the project last summer she has found pictures of more than two hundred members of Vanguard's crew, and has identified the mystery man pictured with her relative.

"I went through the whole list of the marines who were killed on Vanguard, and out of a good 30-plus of them, Henry and this other chap Walter (Hattersley) were the only marines who joined the ship on the same day.

"They'd trained at Chatham pretty much the same length of time, so we presume they formed a friendship and that's why they had the photograph done together."

She said that at first the research had seemed easy. "But when I got to 80 photographs, I struggled a bit. I thought 'I don't want to give up,' I probably will never give up.

"But it became harder. Then I got to 100. And I thought 'doubling this will never happen'. But the momentum has grown.

Harry Cooper ended up serving - and dying - on Vanguard

Albert Bushell's great niece - who contributed this photograph - lives in Belgium.

"I found three more today, which takes the total up to 209. When I get to 211, that's exactly 25% found. And then we'll get on to 30%, and 50%. "

Wendy admitted that it was a sad thought that she might never get photographs of every crew member.

"I'm just going to keep badgering on, and contact as many archive places and libraries and newspapers as I can, and family members - if I can get hold of them - and get them to dig into the depths of their boxes and archives, and see what they can find."