Joseph Hugh Turner Brocklebank was not killed at the Front but aboard the troopship HMS Mercian in the Mediterranean. The ship was heading for Gallipoli with 500 troopers from the Lincolnshire Yeomanry aboard, including Oundelian Joseph Brocklebank. Not far from Gibraltar, on the afternoon of 3rd November 1915, the Mercian was apparently shelled by a German U-boat (U38) which had run out of torpedoes. The troopship (in fact a converted cargo ship) had no guns but it survived when the U-boat suddenly dived and disappeared.
However, 23 men including Joseph Brocklebank were killed in the U-boat attack and, contrary to the later story, they were buried in Oran in North Africa and not at sea. The Laxtonian Magazine wrongly claimed that Joseph Brocklebank had drowned, assuming that this must have been his fate since he died at sea.
He was the only son of a farmer, another Joseph Brocklebank, and lived in the Lincolnshire village of Carlton-Le-Moorland, not far from Newark. He was born there on 3rd March 1891 and came up to Oundle and Grafton House in May 1906, leaving in December 1907 at the age of 16. In the 4th Form he won a workshops prize.
At the outbreak of war, he joined the Lincolnshire Yeomanry and in October 1915, they set sail for the Middle East.
Joseph Hugh Turner Brocklebank, who died on 3rd November 1915 is commemorated on a new Lychgate which was built outside the church in his home village of Carlton Le Moorland in Lincolnshire. His name is also on the Helles Memorial in Gallipoli, even though he never fought there.
His grieving father later contributed 5 guineas towards the building of the new School Chapel. Joseph Brocklebank was 24 years old at the time of his death.
C Pendrill
Yarrow Fellow