KEIGHLEY man Henry Throup was among the 1,017 sailors who died when HMS Indefatigable sank to the bottom of the North Sea.
And like most of them, Able Seaman Throup’s body was not recovered for burial following his ship’s fatal involvement in the Battle of Jutland on May 31, 1916.
Henry was born in 1895 in Keighley, growing up at Nashville Terrace near Fell Lane with parents John and Annie and three siblings.
Henry’s father was an iron turner and by the age of 15 Henry was working to, as a ‘taker-off’ in a spinning mill.
In 1912, at the age of 17, he joined the Royal Navy, serving first on HMS Vivid I as a ‘boy 2nd class’ then the following year joining HMS Queen.
By the outbreak of war Henry was back on HMS Vivid I, rising to the rank of Seaman Gunner on HMS Bellerophon before joining his final ship in July 1915.
Henry is listed on the Keighley’s Gallant Sons list of men who volunteered in the early part of the First World War and he is remembered in the Keighley Roll of Honour Book in Keighley Library and the Lund Park Wesleyan Chapel memorial, which is in storage at Cliffe Castle Museum.
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