Bob Sharplin
On 4th June 1929, a slim dark haired young man with a fresh complexion and green eyes stood in the Royal Navy recruiting post in the Medway Towns situated in the county of Kent. He was about 5’ 5” tall, a butcher’s boy who had probably propped his bicycle against the wall outside. He had just volunteered and committed himself to serve his King by signing on to join the Royal Navy for the next twelve years. Little did he know that world events would lengthen that to 23½ years and a major part of his life. It was his eighteenth birthday! Did he know of the strange coincidence in that his paternal Grandfather, John George Sharplin, had signed up two generations earlier on his eighteenth birthday to join the Royal Navy?
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| Bob - The New Recruit July 1929, believed to be at his Gillingham home. Photo: Sharplin family archive |
Bob was born 4th June 1911 in Gillingham, Kent, into a family with strong ties with the Royal Navy. His elder brother Percy volunteered to spend an identical period of service in the Royal Navy. Their father, Percy Edwin had volunteered (Note 1) for the Royal Navy serving for over five years during World War I, while their half brother Phillip was to become an Admiralty Diver based in Chatham Naval Dockyard. Bob’s grandfather, John George Sharplin born 12th May 1843, volunteered and joined the Royal Navy in 1861 and was a crew member aboard HMS Challenger on her almost four year circumnavigation of the world exploring the floors of the oceans. This voyage of exploration (Note 2) is now regarded as the Apollo Mission of its day equal in scientific importance to that of Charles Darwin’s voyage in HMS Beagle which provided critical evidence for Darwin's Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection. John was pensioned out of the service in May 1881. There is a record indicating that John’s paternal grandfather served in the Royal Navy under Admiral Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar on 21st October 1805 but this has yet to be proven.
It seems the Sharplin family home was not a particularly happy one. Bob’s mother Eliza (nee West), whose father was a labourer in the Royal Naval Dockyard at Chatham, died of pernicious anaemia when Bob was eight. His father later married his second wife Rose (Note 3) who bore her husband a son, Philip. Bob gave the impression that he and his brother Percy never quite took to their step-mother while the extended family regarded her as being of an acrimonious disposition. Percy senior their father was a very strict disciplinarian whom Bob seldom spoke of apart from saying that he would thoroughly thrash his sons when he was the worse for drink which appears to have been a little too often. The emotional scar left on Bob was such that he never drank alcohol throughout his whole life, a difficult principle to abide by at times in the Navy.
Bob met his wife to be, Dorcas Hall, in Weymouth when his ship was anchored there for some now unknown naval event. Dorcas and her sister Rose were strolling around the sea front admiring the naval ships anchored in the bay. Bob’s son Clive remembers his mother describing it as “the fleet was in”. Dorcas, tall with long dark hair, very attractive in family photos of the time, nicknamed Darkie by her father, was there enjoying herself with her sister Rose. She was “in service” as it was called then as a house-maid to a Naval Commander and his family who lived somewhere nearby. The sisters came from a Dorset family named Hall. She had three brothers who were like peas-in-a-pod. All worked on the land, were all over 6ft tall, thin and wiry almost gangling in posture with long arms and very large hands but all softly spoken, gentle in nature and devoted family men. All three were to have large families themselves and thus the extended Hall family was then and still is quite numerous around the Dorset / Wiltshire border region. The girls' maternal grandfather, Fred Dyer, was a railway engine driver obviously good at his job as he would drive the royal train on occasions in the West Country. Rose married one Oliver Nelson, also a regular Royal Navy man, a wireless operator who was destined to survive being sunk twice on the same voyage on one of the dreaded World War 2 convoys to Russia, firstly whilst being in an escort ship and secondly in the ship which had rescued him. He retired in the rank of Chief Petty Officer.
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| Bob & Dorcas’s Wedding 30 December 1933 Uniform of Mechanician 2ndClass with 4 years Good Conduct chevron Photo: Sharplin family archive |
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| Dorcas hop picking in Kent Thought to be 1933 Photo: Sharplin family archive |
Both his children remember Bob as being away from home more often than he was there; Clive vividly remembers some aspects of life in England during World War 2 and some of his father’s absences as “very long”. Bob would rarely talk to anyone about his experiences at war, not even with his wife but Clive did learn much later that his father did unburden himself to an Aunt of his known to everyone as just “Aunt Doll (Lowdell)”.
Describing himself as a “matelote” (from Old French meaning a sailor or from Old Norse a messmate) Bob became what in the Navy was called a “big ship man” serving virtually nearly all of his sea time in cruisers and battleships. His earliest seagoing commission was in the world’s first ship to be purpose designed and built by any Navy as an aircraft carrier, HMS Hermes, in which he spent three years away from home in the Far East Fleet based on Hong Kong. During World War 2 he served in the Atlantic, Mediterranean and European theatres, being present at several of the key Royal Naval battles of that War such as the Malta Convoys, Matapan, Greece, Crete and D-Day. The post-war years saw him return to the Far East and venturing further to South Africa and Australia.
Like so many of his compatriots at the end of World War 2 he was offered a transfer into the Royal Australian Navy with a move to Sydney but eventually decided against it, a decision which Clive felt that Bob regretted later in life.
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| Bob in tropical kit. The back of this photo is marked "Bob. 1st commission overseas, HMS Hermes". Hermes was based with the Far East Fleet based on Hong Kong. Photo: Sharplin family archive |
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| Bob as Petty Officer, rated Mechanician 1st Class with at least 8 years service denoted by two Good Conduct chevrons.He would have worn this uniform upon joining HMS Ajax on 19 March 1940. Taken at his Gillingham home. Photo: Sharplin family archive |
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| Bob the family manat his Deal (Kent) home with his wife Dorcas, daughter Wendy and son Clive Standing behind are Bob's Aunt Doll and Uncle Arch (Lowdell) Date thought to be Christmas 1953 Photo: Sharplin family archive |
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| Bob the father with his daughter Wendy At Gillingham, probably July 1943 Photo: Sharplin family archive |
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| Bob near retirement at his Deal home with “Spot” Photo: Sharplin family archive |
Clive had emigrated to Perth in Western Australia in late 1971 with his family and Bob, then fully retired, with Dorcas decided to follow them. Their stay was short however as in 1976 they moved back to live in the Wiltshire town of Westbury close to Wendy and her family and settled down to a quiet retired life enjoying their grandchildren.
Late in 1978 Bob was diagnosed with cancer and died on June 3rd the following year, just one day before his 68th birthday and one day before the 50th anniversary of his visit to the Royal Navy recruiting office. Dorcas died in October 1992 from complications arising from pneumonia. Their ashes lie in Haycombe Cemetery on the outskirts of the west of England city of Bath in a peaceful memorial garden which always appears to be full of flowers.
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| Bob at home in his garden in Westbury, Wiltshire, late spring 1979. The Shields had been presented to him some years before. The Ajax Shield (incorrectly made with the Frigate's badge) displays the nine battle honours won by the Cruiser Ajax. The right hand Shield displays the Admiralty Badge encased by small plaques bearing the names and dates of the 15 major ships he served in with their names and dates of his service in them. This photo is believed to be the last taken of him shortly before his death. Photo: Sharplin family archive |
NOTES:
1. Bob’s father Percy was a Crane Attendant in the Chatham Naval Dockyard. He volunteered for the Royal Navy under what became known as “The Derby Scheme” in which he promised to accept being called up when required. The Dockyard authorities actually refused his release when he was called up in May 1916 but he was so determined to join up that he discharged himself from their employment abandoning all his pension entitlements etc. After discharge from his Naval service on 24 February 1919 he returned to employment in the Dockyard where he remained until his retirement. The Sharplin family archive holds a copy of a letter written by the commanding officer of Percy’s last ship, the then relatively new “R” Class destroyer HMS “Raider”, to the Admiral Superintendent of the Dockyard requesting that in view of Percy’s volunteering for war service that his full pension rights be restored. Unfortunately no record of the decision has yet been found.2. This HMS Challenger was the fifth of the eight Royal Navy vessels to have borne that name and was specially fitted out for this unique voyage. A wooden hulled warship originally rated as a 22-gun Corvette, this Challenger was of the age betwixt sail and steam having three fully rigged masts with an auxiliary steam engine driving a single propeller. Built at Woolwich Dockyard, launched on February 13, 1858, of just 2,306 tons (1,462bm), she had a length of 200ft and a 40.5ft beam. In the conversion to a survey ship for this voyage 18 of her guns were removed.
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| A Dinoflagellate, a type of deep ocean plankton. |
It was the first ever sea voyage organized specifically to gather data on a wide range of ocean features, including ocean temperatures, seawater chemistry, currents, marine life, and the geology of the seafloor. It changed the course of scientific history, gave birth to modern oceanography and is now regarded as perhaps the greatest oceanographic mission of all time equal in scientific importance to the eminent discovery voyage of Charles Darwin in HMS Beagle. Quite apart from other Challenger results over 4,000 previously unknown species were discovered and recorded.
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| HMS Challenger |
One of HMS Challenger's laboratories
The extreme climatic conditions experienced by HMS Challenger’s crew ranged from sweltering
tropical heat to the freezing Antarctic plus with so many people confined in such a relatively small ship made even more difficult with spaces dedicated for laboratories and research facilities life aboard must have been extraordinarily daunting. This working environment combined with the sheer drudgery of constantly lowering and hauling ropes to and from the sea bed at such extreme depths together with taking the depth soundings saw fully a quarter of the ship’s crew desert at her various points of call. These desertions plus 7 who died, combined with 26 invalided out or put ashore sick at various ports and 6 landed in the Antarctic on an expedition made the crew seriously short handed and created much more work for those who remained. Included in the death toll was one of the scientists from a bacterial infection.
John Sharplin is recorded as having completed the voyage and went on to serve a further 5 years in the Royal Navy finally retiring on May 13, 1881. Having completed an unblemished 16 years service he earned the Royal Navy’s coveted Long Service and Good Conduct Medal.
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| A Dinoflagellate, a type of deep ocean plankton |
Another discovery by HMS Challenger is now known as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, an undersea mountain range which stands at 25,453 ft tall compared to Mount Everest which is 29,035 ft.
Another first to her credit was that she was the first machinery powered vessel to enter the Antarctic.
Challenger's voyage lasted 3 ½ years finally arriving back in England at Spithead on May 24, 1876, from where she proceeded to Sheerness to pay off on 12 June 1876 . The expedition’s ensuing report took 20 years to write covered 50 volumes in a total of 29,552 pages; a copy now resides in the Bodleian library of the University of Oxford. Other copies are held in the libraries of many learned institutions and research facilities around the world.
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| A Deep Sea Sponge |
This voyage is today considered as being the NASA Apollo space mission of its day. NASA is on record that it “named its first space shuttle orbiter and the Apollo 17 lunar module after the British Naval research vessel HMS Challenger that sailed the Atlantic and Pacific oceans during the 1870s. Like its historic predecessor, (NASA’s) Challenger and her crews made significant scientific contributions to the spirit of exploration”.
Of particular personal interest to Bob's son Clive is that between late March and April 1874 Challenger conducted her research off Melbourne, Australia, in Port Phillip Bay; just short of one hundred years before he together with his wife Carol and children Nik and Joanne in 1978 moved back to Australia from England to settle in Melbourne. The family had previously lived in Perth, Western Australia.
As to the ship she was recommissioned on 26 June 1876 just two weeks after her arrival at Sheerness to become temporary guard ship of the 1st Reserve at Harwich until 26 April 1878 when she paid off. Two years later she was stripped down to a hulk and designated as a training ship then made a receiving ship followed in 1910 by being converted to an accommodation ship at Chatham. Finally she was sold on January 6, 1921, to J.B. Garnham at which point "British Warships in the Age of Sail 1817 - 1863 Page 193" records her as being broken up, whereas Colledge and Warlow in "Ships of the Royal Navy, Page 73" has no record after her sale. Either way it was the closure of one of history's most glorious maritime scientific expeditions by a ship which in various roles had given the Royal Navy some sixty years of service, given her name to a modern deep sea exploration vessel and to a NASA space shuttle and a lunar exploration craft.
3. Rose (nee Peachy) was actually a cousin to Eliza.
4. References:
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