Ch.ERA. Herbert William Powley
Royal Navy HMS Hood
from:Headingley, Yorkshire
(d.24th May 1941)
Herbert Powley was born on 2nd December 1900 in Eastleigh, Hampshire, the son of William Charles Powley and Bessie nee Phippen. His father was a coach finisher on the railways. His father died when Herbert was only four. Soon thereafter, Herbert moved to Exeter with his mother and two sisters, and he later attended Hele's Grammar School in the city.
Herbert signed up for the Royal Navy on his eighteenth birthday, soon after the end of the First World War. He was a boy artificer. His first assignment was on HMS Indus, which was the Engine Room Artificer's Training establishment commissioned in 1904. Soon after his 25th birthday, he was seconded to the Royal Australian Navy. First, he was assigned to HMA London until 17th December 1925, then served on Cerberus (18th December 1925 to 10th March 1926), Geranium (11th March 1926 to 9th May 1927 and Penguin (10th May 1927 to 28th January 1928). HMAS Cerberus was the Royal Australian Navy's primary training establishment, located adjacent to Crib Point on the Mornington Peninsula, south of Melbourne, Victoria. In 1927 whilst in Australia he married Marion Broadhead, a worsted mender, who had travelled to Australia from Leeds, Yorkshire, to join her sister, Alice. Herbert was friends with a fellow secondee, Herbert Broadhead, Marion's brother. From 1934 until 1939, Herbert was based in Malta, and served on HMS Hood. Herbert served as president of the Engine Room Articifers Club in Malta and was presented with a silver tea service in recognition. The family moved back to England in 1939 and lived in Headingley, Leeds.
The outbreak of the Second World War meant that Herbert did not retire when he became 40, and he died when HMS Hood was sunk by the Bismarck at the Battle of Denmark Strait.
