Engineer Room Artificer 3rd Class Sidney George Powney

Sidney was born in Battersea on 30 July 1889/1890 – the date varies on different records.

His father, Henry, was a blacksmith and his mother was Mary Ann nee Newton. They had eleven children, some of whom died young. Sidney was baptised on 22 November 1895 in St Andrews, Battersea, along with siblings Mabel, Henry, Lilian and Ernest.

He started school on 15 May 1893 at New Road, Lambeth and the family were then living at 29 New Road.

He joined the Royal Navy in 1912 and gave his address as HMS Southampton when he married Annie Eleanor Bellman in Holy Trinity Church, Wimbledon on 13 May 1915. Her address at the time was 78 Griffiths Road, Wimbledon but she later moved to 12 Burbeck Road, also in Wimbledon. They had a son, Arthur who was born on 4 March 1917.

Sidney served on various ships, Victory II, Seagull, Good Hope, Victory II again, Tisgard, Southampton, Victory II for a third time and finally Narborough. The Narborough and her sister ship Opal were acting as a protective screen for a third ship on deep night patrol in the Pentland Firth. The weather deteriorated very rapidly and the ships were ordered to return to Scapa Flow. It is not clear how the two ships got so hopelessly lost but they could not find their way through the blizzard. The Opal radioed in the position where she thought they were but it was wrong and both ships went aground. Only one man survived and he was eventually picked up and able to relate how visibility was nearly zero and the ships both overturned after they ran aground. The rescue attempt was hampered by the wrong information about their whereabouts given by HMS Opal.
188 men died that night and they are commemorated on the Naval Memorial at Portsmouth.
Sidney is also commemorated in Holy Trinity Church, Wimbledon.