Bridget
TRENERRY, aged 64, Stewardess on HMHS "Asturias" (Belfast),
Mercantile Marine.
Bridget died on 24th
March 1917, as a result of an attack by an enemy submarine. Daughter of the late John and Mary Murphy;
wife of the late Edmund Trenerry. Bridget
is commemorated on the HOLLYBROOK MEMORIAL, SOUTHAMPTON, Hampshire, UK
Bridget was
born Bridget Murphy in 1853 in Dublin.
She was married to Edmund Trenerry, a Customs Officer in Falmouth in
September 19871 and the family lived in Truro in Cornwall in 1881. Edmund and Bridget had two sons – Henry,
born in 1878 and Francis, born in 1882.
In 1891 the family were living in Southampton and by 1901, Edmund had
retired and they were living in Portswood, Hampshire.
Jessie was born in Mooltan, Bengal, India on 21st
March 1889. Her father was Frederick
William Phillips, a Police Superintendent, and his wife Josephine Maud
Phillips, nee Laville.
On the night of 20th – 21st March 1917, HMHS ‘Asturias’ was on her way from the port of Avonmouth, near Bristol, to Portsmouth on the south coast of England. She had just unloaded a thousand wounded men to be transferred to hospitals in Britain. She was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-Boat off the south coast of Devonshire. The crew managed to beach the ship near Bolt Head.‘Asturias’ was another of the passenger liners requisitioned by the British Admiralty for use as a hospital ship during the First World War. Originally in service with the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company ‘Asturias’ was built by Harland and Wolff Shipbuilders of Belfast, who built the Titanic and her sister ships, and sailed the route between Southampton and Buenos Aires in The Argentine. She was sent to be re-fitted as a hospital ship and served during the Gallipoli Campaign, in Egypt and Salonika.
In 1915, ‘Asturias’ was the first hospital ship to be targeted by German U-boats. A torpedo hit her but did not detonate. A press release issued by the German Government at the time explained that ‘Asturias’, clearly marked as a Hospital Ship, had been wrongly identified as a target.
In October
1916, British writer and poet J.J.R. Tolkien, who was taken ill with Trench
Fever while serving on the Western Front, was evacuated to Britain on HMHS
‘Asturias’.
In January
1917, with the British naval blockade causing food shortages and their progress
on the Western Front slowed, Germany announced that she would be waging
unrestricted submarine warfare on shipping travelling to Britain. A Declaration issued on 31st
January 1917 by the German Government and reported in the British press
announced:
“The German Government can no longer
suffer that the British Government forwards troops and munitions to the main
theatre of war under cover of the Red Cross and if therefore declares that from
now on no enemy hospital ship will be allowed in the sea from Flamborough Head
to Tershelling on the one hand and Ouesant (Ushant) and Land’s End on the
other. If in this sea zone after the
expiry of the stated time any enemy hospital ship is encountered, it will be
considered as a v(“Diss Express, 6th April 1917)
Following the sinking of the HMHS “Asturias”, the British “Government announced that measures would be adopted to bring home to the German Government the shameful character of the outrages committed under their orders.” (Globe, Saturday, 7th April 1917)
Sources:
Commonwealth
War Graves Commission List of Female
Casualties of the First World War; British Newspaper Archive; and http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?/topic/134145-hmhs-asturias/&page=3
