Great War seaman remembered
On the 100th anniversary of his death, residents gathered to remember a young seaman lost during the First World War
John Wisdom was a naval rating on the HMS Laurentic and one of the 354 crew members who were killed when the armed merchant cruiser struck a mine and sunk off Ireland in 1917.
A century later, a group by Canon John Corbyn held a short service in his honour at Acacia Villas in Willington Street, Maidstone, where the sailor once lived.
Mr Wisdom enlisted in June 1915, first serving aboard the HMS Nottingham, a light cruiser that fought in the battle of Jutland. In August 1916 it was sunk by a German submarine, and Mr Wisdom joined the Laurentic.
Disaster struck while the ship was en route to America with a 35 tonne cargo of gold, and Mr Wisdom became the third man from Acacia Villas to die during the war.
His name is listed on the Chatham Naval Memorial, and it is thought his two brothers, George and William, survived .
The service is part of an initiative called We Will Remember Them: One By One. Local people who died during the war are remembered with individual services and wreaths are placed where they lived. No pictures survive of many of the fallen, and in the cases where no details are known a wreath is left at the war memorial.
Mr Corbyn said: “It has been very moving. I have been reading these names every year and it has just been a list of names. For those who have been going, it has really brought it alive. I have boys who are exactly this age.
“Some of the most poignant ones, we know nothing about, and these are as important as others we know more about. It is important we remember them because no one else can.”