WILLIAM HENRY ROUND
Like so many of his fellow servicemen it must have been the Royal Navy that brought William Round to Portsmouth. He was born in Oxford in 1871 to William and Elizabeth Round and probably joined the navy at a fairly young age.
The first time his name is connected to Portsmouth in online records was in the census of 1901 when he was living at 6 Sun Street with his wife Evelyn May (b. 1873) and their daughter Gladys May (b. 1897). Ten years later the family was living at 82, St. Vincent Street. On October 14th 1915, Gladys died aged 18 years.
Like her husband, Evelyn May was not a native of Portsmouth. She had been born in Jersey and probably married William Round in Farnham, Surrey in 1896 when her name was recorded as Eva May Price. There is no evidence to suggest why William and Evelyn might have married in Farnham or settled in Portsmouth other than the naval connection.
Equally obscure is the naval career of William Round apart from his death on 31st May 1916 at the Battle of Jutland when his ship HMS Queen Mary was struck by two German shells and sank with all hands. Evelyn May had therefore lost both her husband and her only child within the space of eight months.
FURTHER INFORMATION
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission lists Ship's Chief Cook William Henry Round, Royal Navy (148674), HMS Queen Mary, died on 31/05/1916, aged 44. Remembered on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial (Panel 21). Son of William Henry and Elizabeth M. Round, of Oxford; husband of Eva Evelyn May Round, of 14, Bedford St., Southsea, Portsmouth.
William Round is also remembered on a Family Gravestone in Highland Road Cemetery, and on the Cenotaph. He is not listed in the 'National Roll of the Great War'.
Tim Backhouse
March 2014