T. H. Mizen
Service no. 202018
Able Seaman, Royal Navy, H.M.S. “Natal”
Died 30 December 1915 aged around 32
Remembered at Chatham Naval Memorial and at Stockwell War Memorial, London SW9
The Natal was a Duke of Edinburgh class armoured cruiser, built by Vickers Maxim of Barrow and launched on 30 September 1905. She was sunk by an internal explosion near Cromarty on 30 December 1915.
Information from Wikipedia:
On the 30th December 1915 Natal was lying in the Cromarty Firth with her squadron, under the command of Captain Eric Back RN. Shortly after 3.20pm, and without warning, a series of violent explosions tore through the ship. She capsized five minutes later. The most probable explanation was that a fire had broken out, possibly due to faulty cordite, that ignited a magazine. The exact number of casualties is still debated, and ranges from 390, up to 421. Some were killed in the immediate explosions, others drowned as the ship capsized, or succumbed to the freezing water of the Cromarty Firth. Most of the bodies which were recovered from the sea were interred in Rosskeen Churchyard, Invergordon. A small number of casualties were interred in the Gaelic Chapel graveyard in Cromarty.
The picture shows her upturned hull, visible at low water.
There is an interesting thread about the explosion at www.black-isle.info
Thomas Henry Mizen was born on 25 January 1883 in Brixton to Albert Duncan Mizen and Emma Amelia Turner. Thomas is listed on the 1891 census as visiting with his father, a carman, and younger sister at 38 Ingleton Street, Stockwell. In 1904, at St Paul’s, Lorrimore Square, Walworth (Southwark) Thomas married his first cousin Edith Miriam Payne.
The couple had six daughters (five surviving):
Doris Hetty, born 1905
Elsie, born 1906
Edith Miriam, born 1908
Alice Frances, born 1909
Helen Elizabeth, born 1912
Grace Henrietta, born 1912, died 1913
At the time of Thomas Mizen’s death his family address was recorded as 7 Moat Place, Stockwell Road. Edith died in 1929.
