On this day in 1917, Lieutenant Lancelot John Barrington Walters died

Lieutenant LANCELOT JOHN BARRINGTON WALTERS

H.M.S. Partridge, Royal Navy

Died age 22
12th December 1917

Lancelot John Barrington Walters was born on January 19th 1895 at Castle Bromwich, Worcestershire, and was baptised in the local church on February 2nd. His parents were Charles Barrington and Selina Harriette Perotine Walters. Charles was rector of the church at the time and subsequently became vicar of Stoke Climsland, where he was the incumbent when his son was killed in 1917.

Baptism entry for Lancelot Walters

Lancelot joined the Royal Navy, entering as a naval cadet at the age of 13 in 1908. He trained at the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth and joined the Home Fleet as a midshipman in 1913. Throughout his training, one of his colleagues was His Royal Highness Albert Frederick Arthur George, who was subsequently crowned as George VI.



Entry in the 1915 Year Book for Dartmouth Royal Naval College.

In July 1917 Lancelot was posted, fatefully, from Greenwich to HMS Partridge, which was one of a number of ships, based at Lerwick in the Shetland Islands, being used to escort convoys to and from Norway. On 11th December 1917 the destroyer left port in company with the destroyer HMS Pellew and four armed trawlers, escorting a convoy of six merchant ships. At 11.45 am on 12th December the convoy was south west of Bjorne Fjord when enemy ships were sighted to the north. The convoy was ordered to scatter and the Partridge and the Pellew prepared to engage the enemy in the form of four destroyers. The Partridge was quickly hit, and with her main steam-pipe severed was rendered helpless and a sitting target.

The explosion which rendered HMS Partridge helpless. This photograph was taken from a German ship involved in the action.

After being hit by another torpedo her Captain gave orders for her to be abandoned. Despite this order, Lieutenant Walters, and his colleague Aubrey Grey, were determined to continue the fight. Manning a torpedo tube they fired one which hit an enemy destroyer but failed to explode. Soon afterwards Grey was wounded in the thigh. The two Lieutenants then made for a boat but this capsized casting both into the water. Grey, although wounded, then performed an unselfish act of bravery. He swam to help Walters who was exhausted, and although badly wounded himself in the leg, swam with him for more than a quarter of a mile and placed him on the only vacant place on a raft. Seeing that his own added weight would endanger the raft, he then swam away and was eventually picked up by a German destroyer in a very exhausted state. For this gallant act of life saving, Lieutenant Grey was awarded the Royal Humane Society’s Silver Medal and was subsequently awarded the Society’s Stanhope Gold Medal in 1919 for his action. Sadly, despite Lieutenant Grey’s efforts, Lieutenant Walters died and his body was lost at sea and never recovered.

As well as being commemorated on the Stoke Climsland War Memorial and by a plaque near the church altar, Lieutenant Walters is also remembered on the Royal Navy Memorial at Portsmouth and by a stained glass window at St Catwg’s church in Cwmcarvan in Monmouthshire, a place with close family associations. 

Plaque in Stoke Climsland church to the memory of Lancelot Walters. 

Portsmouth Naval Memorial.