PEOPLE IN PORTSMOUTH

 

Lives Lived and Lives Lost - Portsmouth and the Great War

EDWARD GLADDISH
 
Edward Gladdish's father George (b. 1844) hailed from Malling, Kent where he was an agricultural labourer. The censuses of 1881 and 1891 record him living in Malling with his wife Eliza who had been born in Devon and seven children overall, the fourth born being Edward Gladdish.
 
George and Eliza appear in the 1901 census when they are recorded as still living in Malling but Edward is absent, probably because he had joined the navy and was serving overseas. Ten years later Edward is listed as living in Portsmouth with his wife Cecilia (nee Prince who was born in Portsmouth) whom he had married in 1908. They were living at 34 Dartmouth Road, Copnor and had no children. Edward had left the navy and had taken a job as stoker at the Gas Works.
 
At the outbreak of war in August 1914 Edward was recalled from the reserve and posted to HMS Good Hope which took part in the Battle of Coronel off the coast of South America. The ship was sunk by the German cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau with the loss of her entire crew.
 
FURTHER INFORMATION
 
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission lists Stoker 1st Class Edward Gladdish, (290188), Royal Navy, HMS Good Hope, died on 01/11/1914, aged 34 years. He has no known grave but the sea and is remembered on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial, Panel 4. Son of George and Eliza Gladdish, of West Malling, Kent; husband of Cecilia Gladdish, of 8, Aylesbury Rd., Copnor, Portsmouth.
 
Edward Gladdish is also remembered on the Portsea Island Gas Light Company WW1 memorial in Guildhall Square, and on the Cenotaph. He is listed in the National Roll of the Great War, Section X, p302.
 
Tim Backhouse
February 2014