KGV Royal Fleet Reserve Long Service Good Conduct Medal. Membry. West Ham.

Correctly named K. 15855  (CH.  B.  15230)  H.  MEMBRY.  L.  STO.  R.F.R.

In 1911, we find Harry working as a van guard for the railways and living at 24 Newcastle Street, Cubitt Town with his family and mother who is noted as a widow.

Harry was born in West Ham in 1894 and enlisted into the Royal Navy in 1912.

He spent almost the entirety of WWI aboard HMS Shannon.

In October 1914, the ship was patrolling off the coast of Norway and almost intercepted the armed merchant cruiser SS Berlin on several occasions. During a sweep into the Heligoland Bight on 26 November, she was unsuccessfully bombed by a German aircraft. She began a refit shortly afterwards that lasted until 24 January 1915. Shannon was present in Cromarty Firth when the armoured cruiser Natal’s magazine exploded on 30 December 1915 and her crew attempted to rescue survivors from Natal. The ship received a QF 12-pounder (three-inch) 12-cwt anti-aircraft (AA) gun and a QF 3-pounder (47 mm) AA gun in 1915–16. The 12-pounder gun was mounted on the aft superstructure and the 3-pounder on the quarterdeck at the extreme rear. Sometime afterwards, a fire-control system was installed with a director mounted on a platform fitted to the foremast.

During the Battle of Jutland on 31 May 1916, she was on the unengaged side of the fleet and did not fire her 9.2 or 7.5-inch guns at all during the battle. The ship spent several days after the battle searching for survivors from her sister HMS Defence and other sunken ships.

We find Harry at 78 Green Lanes, Stoke Newington. He is working as a dispatch clerk for a chromium plate works and married to Mary.

We believe he died in 1975.

The medal has an original silk ribbon.