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Harry Seath

Trooper, 2nd (South Wiltshire) Squadron, 1st Battalion, Imperial Yeomanry – Anglo Boer War
Assistant Steward, Mercantile Marine Navy – WWI
Assistant Steward, Shepperton Ferry – WWII

- Queens South Africa Medal (CC/OFS/TVL/SA01/02) to 20563 PTE H. SEATH. 2ND COY IMP. YEO.
- British War Medal to HARRY SEATH
- Mercantile Marine Medal to HARRY SEATH
- 1939/45 Star (unnamed as issued)
- Atlantic Star with France & Germany clasp (unnamed as issued)
- War Medal 1939/45 (unnamed as issued)

Harry Seath was one of those rare individuals who not only switched services – from the Army to the Navy (Mercantile Marine) - but was also one of only 6 chaps recorded who were awarded the Atlantic Star having served in the Anglo Boer War. Quite an achievement although that accolade would have been furthest from his mind as he went about his day.

Born on 4 August 1882 in Canterbury, Kent, he was the son of Henry John Seath, a Policeman, and his wife Rosa Ann (born Wright). Our first glimpse of Harry comes courtesy of the 1891 England census where, at the age of 9, he was at home in 42 Havelock Street, Canterbury along with his parents and many siblings – Ethelbert (14); Matilda (12); Herbert (11); Rosa Ann (7) and Alice (6).


Harry Seath – WWI Merchant Navy Card

As the 19th century crept to a close the Anglo Boer War burst onto the international stage. This conflict, between Great Britain on the one hand and the two Boer Republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State on the other had been on the cards for some time. Tensions had always been present but the abortive Jameson Raid of 1896, designed to unseat President Paul Kruger and his Transvaal Government, added fuel to the flames leading to a declaration of war on 11 October 1899.

But what had a civilian like Harry Seath to do with a war in far-away South Africa? Quite simply, the British war effort was found decidedly lacking on the eve of hostilities – having underestimated the strength and ferocity of the Boer attack, the Imperial Authorities found themselves on the backfoot with not enough regular army troops on the ground to combat the Boer invasion of the Colonies of Natal and the Cape.

Several reverses were experienced in December 1899 in what became known as Black Week and it soon became glaringly apparent that, if the Empire was to persevere and win the war, additional resources would have to be deployed to South Africa. This led to the creation of the Imperial Yeomanry which, in tranches of three contingents, were hurriedly recruited from the civilian population across the length and breadth of the country over a period of two years.

The first contingent, recruited in early 1900, were of altogether a superior stamp of man. Gentlemen from the Men’s Clubs of London and the professions flocked to enlist in its ranks in a wave of patriotic fervour. At this early stage it wasn’t the 5 shillings per diem pay that attracted them but rather the romance and excitement of it all. The second contingent, raised to replace the first which, with the exception of those that had decided to remain in South Africa, was scheduled to return home; did it largely for the money. Gone was the rallying to the flag in England’s hour of need to be replaced with an inferior (for the most part) candidate from the trades and the ranks of the lay abouts and the unemployed whose motive for enlisting was purely and simply money, along with the intention to create a life for themselves in South Africa.
Harry Seath was part of this latter contingent. Walking into the Imperial Yeomanry recruiting office in Canterbury on 23 January 1901, he would have been responding to the recruiting drive to replace the first contingent whose, after 1 years’ service, time was up. Completing the 1 Year with the Colours Attestation forms, he claimed to be a 20 year old Footman by occupation who was already a volunteer with the Cinque Ports Artillery.

5 feet 5 inches in height he weighed 128 lbs and had a fresh complexion, hazel eyes and brown hair. A member of the Church of England, he had three vaccination marks on his left arm by way of identifying characteristics. Having been found fit by the Medic, Seath was assigned no. 20563 – a Private with the 33rd Company of the XIth Battalion (Royal East Kent)

At this juncture it is worth mentioning something else that characterised men from the second contingent – because of the chaos surrounding the administration and deployment of these men – most were sorted, willy-nilly, into any number of companies and battalions who were down on manpower. Largely gone was the County or Regional identity of most of the Yeomanry outfits.

To illustrate this point, Seath saw out most of his time in South Africa as a member of the 2nd Squadron, 1st Battalion (South Wiltshire) Yeomanry. It is from their medal rolls that his Queens medal was issued.

By the time Seath took to the field in the Cape Colony, Orange Free State and Transvaal, on 16 February 1901, the war had entered its guerilla phase. Gone were the pitched battles of the early days to be replaced by hit and run attacks by bodies of small, highly mobile, pockets of the enemy who would swoop down on unsuspecting patrols, convoys and lines of communication and, after the element of surprise had been lost, gallop away into the distance laden with the spoils they had managed to prise from the Imperial and Colonial troops.

They were, for the most part, an unseen enemy which added to the frustration of the British troops, especially the Imperial Yeomanry chaps who had never experienced anything like it – the majority of them having never fired a shot let alone at a concealed target. As time wore on Seath succumbed to the scourge of the Boer War, the thing that occasioned more deaths than the bullet – Enteric Fever (Typhoid). This insidious disease came from drinking polluted water, something that a Trooper on patrol under the hot African sun would be prone to, dipping his water bottle into a stream or a muddy puddle of stagnant water, not realising or not bothered with the consequences of his actions.

Stricken with the disease, he was first sent down to a hospital in Howick, Natal whereafter, on 30 December 1901, he was admitted to the 23rd Field Hospital in Bethlehem, Orange River Colony, which was now in British hands. After spending a wretched 45 days in bed he was discharged to the Hospital Ship “Montrose” for repatriation to England. The comments on his medical card reading: - “Has been normal about ten days but temperature rather unsteady. Milk diet, not yet allowed up.”


Seath’s Boer War Medical Record

One can only imagine the tedium of being bedridden for such a long period of time. Having reached England on 12 May 1902 Seath spent another 36 days in uniform before being discharged, at his own request, at Shorncliffe on 16 June 1902. His character and conduct were described as Very Good and he was reported to have been a Coachman by occupation and destined for his father’s house at 92 Grove Road, Folkestone.

Having resumed his civilian occupation, Seath wed Annie Elizabeth in 1902, the couple then had a number of children – Freda Alice, born in 1904; Ivy Louise born in 1906; John William born in 1907 and Olive Isabelle born in 1910. The 1911 England census revealed that the family now lived at 2 Bouverie Mews in Folkestone – a 6 roomed house. Seath was now employed as a Cab Driver (Horse).

What induced him to leave this occupation in favour of a nautical one we will never know but, the dawn of the Great War on 4 August 1914, saw him in the uniform of the Merchant Marine. Having lived at the seaside for most of his life, Harry Seath had decided that a life at sea was now for him. In 1914, at the age of 31, he enlisted as an Assistant Steward with the South Eastern and Chatham Railway, the owners and operators of the Channel Ferry service. He was aboard the Victoria, a pocket steamer. The contract of employment he signed included this job description: -

“As sailors – In voyages between the ports of Dover and Folkestone and the Ports on the Continent of Europe between the Rivers Elbe and Brest, inclusive, and to and from the Ports of Dover and Folkestone and any Ports on the Coasts of the United Kingdom, as may be required from time to time by the Marine Superintendent for the time being of the Management Committee of the South Eastern and London, Chatham and Dover Railway Companies, and also to serve the said Management Companies on shore, when, where and as required.”

Thus it was that Seath, plied his trade across the Channel for the duration of the war earning for himself the British war Medal and the Mercantile Marine Medal.


The Victoria

The war over on 11 November 1918, Seath continued on in the Ferry Service. The 1921 England census records that he was an Assistant Steward “At Sea” aboard the Invicta, a steel-hulled vessel built in Dumbarton in 1905, at the time the enumeration was done. That he was a well-liked man was evident from a newspaper article which appeared in the Folkestone, Hythe, Sandgate & Cheritan Herald of 19 January 1929 under the banner “Christmas at Royal Victorian Hospital” – it read thus: -

“To the Editor – Sir, - May I be permitted to express my feelings on the wonderful time that was given to all patients who were unfortunate enough to have to spend their Christmas away from home. I was also pleased to know that Mr Harry Seath, a well-known Folkestonian, who was also an inmate, came well to the fore to help cheer his fellow patients, for, although he has recently undergone a painful operation, he was able to give a cheery word of encouragement (when he was able to wheel himself around the wards) to help brighten the lives of others. Let us wish him a more prosperous 1929 than 1928 has been as, I understand, this was his second illness at the Royal Victoria Hospital in 1928. Good luck, Harry for 1929! A Fellow Patient.”

Still in the employ of the South-Eastern Railways, Seath was transferred to the newly built SS Shepperton Ferry when she underwent her maiden voyage in 1935. It had been agreed that Southern Railway would provide three purpose built ferries for the channel run.

Built by Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson, Newcastle-on-Tyne, they were the Shepperton, Twickenham, Hampton. 2,839 tons each, they were coal-fired and had an average speed of 15 knots with a length of 359-foot; 63-foot 9-inch beam and 12-foot 6-inches draft. Each ship was designed to take 12 sleeping cars, 500 passengers during the day, or approximately 40 goods wagons. There was also a small floor above the train deck to accommodate approximately 20 cars.

Unbeknown to many trouble was brewing as the last year of the 1930’s dawned. Hitler had been swept to power in Germany and had made no secret of his war-like ambitions. Whilst peace and tranquillity reigned everywhere, the Germans had begun a massive rearmament programme which put them onto a war footing as the end of 1939 neared. War was declared on 6 September and the Royal Navy set about requisitioning a number of ships to help bolster her fleet. Shepperton Ferry was one of these -she served as the minelayer, troopship and heavy lift ship HMS Shepperton - after only brief service as a Minelayer, she was used to transport military vehicles to France.


SS/HMS Shepperton Ferry

She also took part in two evacuations – the first being the evacuation of British Expeditionary Force troops from the beaches of Dunkirk in France. From May 26 to June 4, over 338,000 British and French troops were safely evacuated from Dunkirk in an armada of both small boats and the Royal Navy.

The second was the evacuation of civilians from the Channel Islands in 1940. This was was an organised, partial, nautical evacuation of Crown dependencies in the Channel Islands, primarily from Jersey, Guernsey, and Alderney to Great Britain. The islands and the British military began the evacuation following the Allies' loss in the Battle of France, after which the British Army withdrew from the islands.

On 10 May 1940, the Phoney War ended and Belgium and the Netherlands were invaded. Little did the islanders imagine their homes would be under German occupation for five years, before liberation on 9 May 1945. When it became clear that the Battle of France was lost, time was limited for anyone to evacuate, even so 25,000 people went to Great Britain, roughly 17,000 from Guernsey, 6,000 from Jersey and 2,000 from Alderney in the ten days before the German troops landed at the end of June 1940. Most civilians who were evacuated went to England.

Ships urgently needed to evacuate soldiers from France in Operation Aerial, were diverted to help civilians in the Channel Islands. Marshal Philippe Pétain requested an armistice on 17 June and on 19 June nearby Cherbourg was captured by German forces. Eighteen ships sailed on 21 June from Jersey including the SS Shepperton Ferry carrying military stores and 400 evacuees. Evacuation ships stopped on 23 June,  when ships sailed for England empty.

With the air war over Europe in full swing the Luftwaffe raided Belfast again on 5 May 1941, the fourth and final raid of the Belfast Blitz. Shepperton found herself in Irish waters at this time. The German bombers cause widespread damage and lightly damage aircraft carrier HMS Furious and seaplane tender Pegasus. In addition, destroyer Volunteer and corvette La Malouine also were damaged, the latter fairly seriously. The British 1719-ton freighter Fair Head and 6044-ton freighter Cape Breton were sunk (the latter refloated and repaired), while 2839-ton freighter Shepperton Ferry and 4283-ton blockship Frederika Lensen were damaged. One can only wonder what Seath, an Assistant Steward throughout his career, made of all this.

Both Shepperton and her sister ship Hampton, were also involved in bringing troops from the USA. She was also involved in air sea rescue – in one such incident, No. 27 Air Sea Rescue /Marine Craft Unit’s Operations Record Book showed that launches 180, 189 and 2549 were sent out to search the area of North and South Foreland at 12.00 hrs on the 23rd December 1944.

Launch 2549 returned with 4 bodies. Launch 180 intercepted the Shepperton Ferry and received 2 bodies from that vessel. Wreckage was seen at ‘130 degrees, S.Fld, 11 mls’. 2 Spitfires and 1 Walrus were also involved in the search. Three of the recovered bodies were formally identified at Ramsgate Mortuary as those of GS Lawson, N Brown and AS Fleming. The others were from the crew of PB678 – all Lancaster bombers.

Having served throughout the war, Seath was awarded the 1939/45 Star, the Atlantic Star with the France & Germany clasp (no doubt thanks to being present on D-Day to offload weapons and heavy equipment) and the War Medal 1939/45.

After a career spanning 31 years, The Dover Express and East Kent News of March 4, 1949 informed the reading public that he had retired. He passed away on 30 December 1951 at the age of 70. His mortal remains are interred in the Hawkinge Cemetery in the Shepway District of Kent. A life well lived serving others.

Interesting stuff Rory. Your trademark excellent research is much appreciated. Thank you for sharing.

Excellent research! Thanks for being this story to life. Great photos too!