Remembered Today: Yeoman of Signals 22097 William George Crump Royal Navy

William George Crump, the eldest son of George Crump of Bromsgrove and Prudence Delsaux Fricker Crump  from Dunkerton, Somerset, was born in Laverton, Gloucestershire, on 9th December 1986.  William had four brothers and five sisters and by 1901 the family had moved to Tuck Mill, Broadway, where they ran a beerhouse and farmed the surrounding land.

After leaving school, aged 15, William joined the Royal Navy, and he served on destroyers and dreadnoughts and as a naval instructor at Plymouth, Devon, before the outbreak of the First World War. In 1912 he married Mary Edith Cotterell of Willersey Hill Farm, Willersey (now the Dormy House Hotel), and they had three children.

In June 1914, William was commissioned to HMS Marlborough which at the end of May 1916 was torpedoed in the Battle of Jutland. After the battle William was transferred to serve on HMS Revenge, the lead ship of the Revenge class of battleships which at the end of 1916 became the flagship of Admiral Charles E. Madden, second in command of the Grand Fleet.

William was taken ill in early 1919 and died of peritonitis at the Royal Naval Hospital, Plymouth, on 16th March 1919. His funeral took place with full naval honoursin the city and he is buried in Ford Park Cemetery (formerly known as Pennycomequick or Plymouth Old Cemetery).

His younger brother, Francis Laurent Delsaux Crump, who had been born in Broadway on 19th January 1897 enlisted with the Worcestershire Regiment shortly after the outbreak of the First World War. Francis served on the Western Front and was later commissioned as a Second Lieutenant attached to 21 Squadron Royal Flying Corps. Francis was killed during a practice flight on 18th October 1918 at Floringhem and he is buried in Lapugnoy Military Cemetery. Both William and Francis are commemorated on the City of Gloucester Cenotaph.

City of Gloucester Cenotaph © Broadway Remembers

William is one of 48 commemorated on the Broadway War Memorial. Further information about William and his fellow men from Broadway commemorated on the memorial can be found in ‘Broadway Remembers’ (a not-for-profit publication published to coincide with the global First World War Centenary commemorations led by the Imperial War Museum. Proceeds to the Poppy Appeal).

 

Debbie Williamson
Broadway Remembers