Name
Henry Thomas Goss
1878
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
01/11/1914
36
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
12656
Royal Marine Light Infantry
H.M.S. "Good Hope"
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Navy Star, British War Medal and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
PORTSMOUTH NAVAL MEMORIAL
6
United Kingdom
Headstone Inscription
N/A
UK & Other Memorials
Baldock Town Memorial, St Mary the Virgin Church Memorial, Baldock
Pre War
Henry Thomas Goss was born on 16 July 1878 in Baldock, Hertfordshire, the son of Thomas and Matilda Goss, sadly his father died the following year and on the 1881 Census he was living with his widowed mother in the High Street, Baldock
His mother married Alfred South in 1882 and by the 1891 Census Henry was living with his stepfather, mother and five step siblings at Orchard Road, Baldock, where his stepfather was working as a tailor. The family remained there in 1901 at which time Henry was working as a groom domestic.
Wartime Service
It is likely that Henry was already a serving soldier when war was declared in August 1914. He had joined the Royal Marine Light Infantry and was serving on the HMS Good Hope, which became the flagship of Rear Admiral Christopher Cradock. The ship was one of a squadron ordered to the Strait of Magellan to block German attempts to penetrate into the South Atlantic. On 1 November 1914, in the Battle of Coronel, off the coast of Chile, Good Hope, was one of two cruisers lost with all hands.
Henry's body was not recovered for burial and his name is commemorated on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial, Hampshire.
Additional Information
Henry named his stepsister, Olive South as next of kin as his mother died in 1912.
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
Adrian Pitts, Paul Johnson, www.roll-of-honour.com
