Charley Stone (known as 'Char') (b. 6 Jun 1898 in
Tiverton, Devon), son of
Charles Stone and Emma Middleton, married
Ellen Jones (Nell) (b. 23 Apr 1894 in
Rushbrooke,
Cobh (Queenstown as it was then),
County Cork, Ireland), daughter of
David Jones and Laura Elizabeth White, on
3 Jul 1922, at
St George's Church, Tiverton (
generally considered to be the finest Georgian church in Devon, and one of the best examples in England.) Witnesses were
Francis Stone, the groom's uncle;
William Henry Middleton, the groom's elder half-brother and their mother, Emily Stone (former
Emma Middleton). Given that line up, my feeling is that Bill was best man, while Frank gave away the bride as her own father was back in Ireland.
Charley Stone b. 6 Jun 1898 at
1 Silver Street, Tiverton, and baptised on 20 Jul 1898 at
St Peter’s Church Tiverton, lied about his age when he enlisted in the
Royal Marines at Exeter on 18 Jan 1915, which is why this and many subsequent records suggest he was born a year earlier in 1897. The marines can't ever have discovered the one year discrepancy though, because his record notes the 139 days he was underage, from 18 Jan 1915 to 5 Jun 1915, but 6 Jun 1915 was only his 17th birthday, not his 18th.
He was promoted to
Corporal on 1 Jan 1818, at 19 (although the Marines will have thought he was 20) and stayed with Revenge until 24 Jan 1918.
"
On the 6th February 1918 orders were issued for the formation of a Battalion to be raised in Deal in total secrecy for one specific operation, the 1918 St George’s Day Zeebrugge Raid. This became one of the Royal Marines’ most significant engagements of the First World War." [
Source]
Dominic Walsh has informed me that, "
Charley was scheduled to go on the raid, but was admitted to Deal Infirmary for treatment and never went." We know this, because Charley Stone's name appears on the lists of non-commissioned officers and men who did not embark for the operation, but there are no clues as to why Char was hospitalised and we're not aware of him sustaining any injury or ever being ill. In 1918, Deal Infirmary (then based at Wellington Road) operated as a joint civilian and military auxiliary hospital. It treated recovering World War I soldiers, rescued naval personnel, and local townsfolk for a wide array of combat injuries, illnesses, and severe infectious diseases. Such a wide range of cover also doesn't give us any pointers.
From 23 May 1918, until 16 Jul 1919, Char was assigned to
HMS Glory (1899), of the
British North Russia Squadron, which took him to
Archangel and
Murmansk during the
North Russia intervention. "Glory was based at Archangel to protect supplies that arrived there for the
Russian Army. The squadron's mission evolved after the
Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 into preventing the supplies that had been delivered from falling into the hands of the
Red Army." He arrived just in time for
A Fire, a Riot, a Bombing, and a Mutiny (
The Allied Intervention at Archangel and Murmansk in 1918). Like most who went through these events, Char never talked about his experiences, except to
a brother who was also a Marine, and what I've been told only intimated that things were
really bad (understatement) up there.
Continuing his amazing ability to turn up in all the wrong places at the right times, from 12 Feb 1920 to 15 Mar 1922 Char was sent to
HMS Colleen (formerly
HMS Royalist (1883)), which was then the depot ship at Queenstown (
Cobh), Ireland, at the height of the
Irish War of Independence. Being
hulked (stuck in one place), allowed more opportunity to
fraternise with the locals, obviously. The 1921 Census merely shows Charley Stone (24) [i.e. still maintaining he was a year older than he really was], Corporal R M L I, with the Royal Navy, Armed Forces Overseas.
Nell and Char's only child,
Charles Francis Stone (Frank) was born, on 17 July 1923 (1923 S Quarter in DEVONPORT Volume 05B Page 457) at The Military Families Hospital, Devonport and christened at
The Anglican Church of Saint Paul, Durnford Street, East Stonehouse on Sunday, 5 Aug 1923. This was the day after the wedding of Char's first cousin
Frederick Thomas Stone and Kathleen Mullarkey, at which Char was best man and could have been the new baby's first "social engagement" - not that he'd have remembered it - but it feels like a real connection to the past to imagine that maybe
Maria Mullarkey, the bride's mother, may have fawned over the new infant (as you do). The family's address at that time was
36, Admiralty Street, East Stonehouse (flat above presumably), which is now
The Fig Tree Restaurant,
this was once a shop.
 |
Eastern Kings Battery, Plymouth, taken Friday, 30 June, 2023
cc-by-sa/2.0 - © Alan Murray-Rust - geograph.org.uk/p/7538232
This was built on the site of a late 18th century battery in 1849 as the Prince of Wales Battery and includes later alterations up to WW2, such as the observation post visible in the view.
Still in military occupation. Designated a Scheduled Monument. |
The rest of Char's Royal Marines' career was spent mostly at Plymouth Division and, at
HMS Impregnable training establishments in
Devonport: the former
HMS Black Prince (1861) in late 1922 and the former
HMS Ganges (1821) in 1923/24. They lived for a time in the
Eastern King battery (dad said it was damp and cold), where Frank and his cousins played football on the landings, climbed on the roofs and got into trouble, although, at the time of his father's death in 1930, Char listed his address as
11 Durnford Street, Plymouth. Char had been promoted to
Sergeant from 9 Aug 1924,
Colour sergeant from 2 Apr 1931, and
Quartermaster sergeant (QMS) in Aug 1932, retiring on 5 Jun 1936, just 3 days after the death of his mother.
(The photo, right, must have been taken, in Plymouth, very close to the end of Charley's career, because the four medals he was awarded and can be seen wearing were: the
British War Medal and the
Victory Medal for WWI; he was awarded the
Long Service and Good Conduct Medal on 20 Jul 1930; and on 7 May 1935 he received the
King's Silver Jubilee Medal.) Sadly, after my father's death in 2001, my (deranged) mother disposed of my grandfather's medals, but which I did not discover until after her death in 2011, so was powerless to prevent. It is allegedly a friend of
Dominic Walsh who now has possession of Char's medals, but who is showing no inclination or willingness to communicate to discuss their return.
 |
| Nell and Char's only child, Charles Francis Stone (Frank), aged around three. |
|
| Charley Stone and his car (with my dad, Frank, in the vehicle). This must have been taken in Plymouth and therefore is in or before 1936. Grandad still had that car when I was a child too. |
 |
Nell and Char on their
25th Wedding Anniversary
in 1947, in the garden of 117,
Corisande Road, Selly Oak. |
After he retired from the Royal Marines, Char took a job as a Post Office Van Driver in Birmingham, which is where we find the family in 1939, at
117 Corisande Road, Selly Oak with Charley Stone, Postman Driver (Heavy Work) still listing himself as a year older and Ellen still trying to close the four year age gap and be two years younger. Frank (16) was working as a Stationery clerk at the Screw Works.
Char had worked as a gardener before he'd joined the marines, having worked in the kitchen garden at
Knightshayes Court in Tiverton. In Birmingham, he grew soft fruits - I remember being sent up the garden to pick raspberries and blackcurrants - and he had a greenhouse stuffed full of his favourite
fuchsias that, in his Devon accent were always pronounced
foosherrs.
Charley Stone died on 10 May 1973 at
Selly Oak Hospital from Chronic renal failure, Hypertension and carcinoma of the oesophagus. The informant was his widow, Ellen Stone (my grandmother) and his date of birth on his death certificate was correctly stated as 6 Jun 1898, so she had known.
