View Thread
 Patrick Collins' demise
|
|
| MargaretCollins |
Posted on 22/09/2016 16:19
|
 New Member  Posts: 4 Joined: 22/09/2016 |
I have only today found this lovely website as a result of a bit of luck elsewhere trying to track down the fate of my g/granny's first husband. I have got lots of questions, because I've been seeking information on this man for a long time, and no doubt will put them in the appropriate threads as I get used to the site. To start with, though, I have a general question. Patrick Collins was described as an Able seaman on board the Dryad at the time when he was invalided out of the service in 1880. What was his situation? Was he a member of the Coastguard Service, under the supervision of the Royal Navy? How did it work? And, a second question (!), if he was 'invalided out' in Plymouth, would he have been sent to the Naval Hospital there? I am assuming that he died in hospital as I was told his grave is somewhere in Plymouth though I haven't yet been able to trace it. Thanks to anyone who might be able to give me another clue. |
|
|
|
| MargaretCollins |
Posted on 23/09/2016 08:36
|
|
New Member Posts: 4 Joined: 22/09/2016 |
Well, having read through the site, and read so many very interesting articles, I now understand how the Coastguard Service was set up. What still strikes me as a little odd, though, is how Patrick was 'invalided' out. His home base (complete with wife and child) was in Queenstown. It seems a little odd to me that he was apparently turfed off the ship into (presumably) hospital and, ultimately, a grave, in Plymouth without anything subsequently having been written on his service record. Does this not seem strange to anyone else? I know times were very different then, and people were not as coddled as they are now, but still. No mention of a next of kin informed, no date of death, nothing. |
|
|
|
| crimea1854 |
Posted on 23/09/2016 15:04
|
 Administrator  Posts: 905 Joined: 09/07/2007 |
Margaret I note from his service record that he was actually paid off from HMS Dryad on the 5 March 1880 & invalided to Plymouth on 11 March 1880. At the time Dryad was on the East Indies Station, so it is possible he picked up a tropical disease or alternately sustained an injury requiring that he be sent home. Nowhere on his record does it have the fateful initials DD - discharged dead, which makes me think that he died AFTER leaving the navy and could possibly have made his way home and lived for many more years, unless you have evidence to the contrary? Martin |
|
|
|
| MargaretCollins |
Posted on 23/09/2016 16:35
|
|
New Member Posts: 4 Joined: 22/09/2016 |
Hello Martin, Thank you so much for your reply (which I have just answered at length only for the whole thing to disappear!). What I said was that I find the whole thing about the Dryad hard to understand, since Patrick Collins was an Irish Coastguard seaman, so what on earth would he be doing in the East Indies? I wondered whether there was another ship of the same name, though I can't find one. I was told that he died after falling down a hatchway on board, and also that he was buried in Plymouth and that my grandmother had visited his grave. Sadly, she is long gone and I don't know where that is. His widow remarried in 1887. Bearing in mind that I can't find his death record in 1880, I have sometimes wondered whether I have been told the whole story. I once found a death cert for a death at sea in 1882. It concerned a seaman with the same name as his (a common enough name, unfortunately) who committed suicide by throwing himself overboard from a ship off the coast of Australia. I wondered whether this might be him, and the family had concocted the Plymouth burial story to cover up the shame! Maybe the head injuries sustained in the fall led to the 'lunacy' described. A bit fanciful, but you never know. I do wish I did know, though! Thanks for your help in identifying the fact that he definitely didn't die on board ship. For years, I thought he had, and could never understand why they had offloaded his body in Plymouth, rather than his home base, Queenstown. Of course, if he was simply badly injured and had to be hospitalised, it makes sense. Regards, Siobhan |
|
|
|
| crimea1854 |
Posted on 24/09/2016 09:21
|
|
Administrator Posts: 905 Joined: 09/07/2007 |
Siobhan Can I just correct one thing, at no time was he ever a coastguard. If he were his service record would have 'Boatman' or 'Btn' in the rates column. Martin |
|
|
|
| MargaretCollins |
Posted on 24/09/2016 10:55
|
|
New Member Posts: 4 Joined: 22/09/2016 |
Thanks Crimea. Looks like you were right about something else, too. I've looked at his son's birth certificate from 28th June, three months after he was 'invalided to Plymouth' and it clearly shows his father registering his birth in County Cork and describing himself as a 'naval pensioner'!! The story I was told has definitely got something fishy about it. I'm wondering now whether the National Archives have only got a section of his service record rather than the full thing. |
|
|
|
| Jump to Forum: |
