KNOTT, Joseph

Joseph Knott served in the Royal Navy and his parents, Joseph and Maria Knott, later lived in 57 Block, Munitions Houses, Dudley. By 1916 he was a Leading Stoker on HMS Queen Mary, launched in 1912 and the most modern of the battle-cruisers of the Royal Navy at the outbreak of war. She displaced 27,000 tons and had a crew of 1200. She took part in the 1914 Battle of Heligoland Bight and was in the 1st Battle-cruiser Squadron in 1916. When the German High Seas fleet emerged into the North Sea on the 31st May for the decisive attack on the Royal Navy, the Squadron under Beatty moved rapidly from Rosyth to intercept. Off Jutland the Squadron closed with the German battle cruisers. Queen Mary was shelled by Seydlitz and then seriously damaged by Derfflinger. She was sunk after internal explosions and only 18 of her crew of 1284 survived. In spite of this disaster the battle of Jutland was not lost as the outcome was that the German fleet retreated to its base and did not emerge again. Leading Stoker Joseph Knott was 26 years of age and is commemorated on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial and on the Dudley Memorial. Stoker James Brownhill and Marine Walter Franks, also of Dudley, died in the same ship.