Essential Information
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22 Feb 2016
Graham, our Archives Assistant, has been busy researching the crew of the Borodino.
One of the images on the new Crew Lists of the British Merchant Navy 1915 microsite is G11019 from the Historic Photographs collection. This is a group portrait taken in February 1919, just after the BORODINO had finished operating as a floating convenience store for the Admiralty.
I have recently researched these individuals in more detail. Most of them had families in the Hull area and long careers with the local shipping company Thomas Wilson Sons & Co Ltd (the Wilson Line). Some appear in the crew list for the BORODINO covering the period 8 December 1914 to 11 June 1915.
Working from left to right, they are:
Charles Edward Christian BEM (1883-1946) -Chief steward
Walter Lee Baxter (1890-1927) -Second officer
William J. Allen -Secretary and Assistant Manager of the Junior Army and Navy Stores Ltd
Walter James Norton (1867-1944) -Master
Arthur Henry Dominey -Junior Army and Navy Stores Ltd supervisor
Joseph Smith (1856-1934) -Chief engineer
William Henry Wagg MBE (1878-1942) -Second engineer
Norton was master of the BORODINO throughout the period 1911-1925 and gained a popular reputation among visitors to the ship at Scapa Flow. He was an Elder Brother of Hull Trinity House and a vice-president of the Missions to Seamen. Christian and Wagg both received honours for their service in the Merchant Navy during the Second World War, see the second supplement to ‘The London Gazette’ of 5 June 1942.
Other photographs in the Bedford Lemere & Co series can be viewed online by searching for the BORODINO in the collections of Royal Museums Greenwich and the Historic England Archive.
You can search the Crew Lists of the British Merchant Navy from the year 1915 for free. See our 750,000 strong database