Peterborough & The Great War

Biography

Clarence Walter Victor Pye, was born in Lowestoft on 27 December 1899, to parents Walter William, a carter (later to become a steam and motor barge master), and Lilian Marion (nee Drake).   On the 1901 Census he is recorded as Victor W, aged one, living with Walter William (25) and Lilian M (23) in Gas House Road, Lowestoft.   In 1911, he was still recorded as Victor, aged 11 and is living at 6 Duke’s Head Street, Lowestoft with his mother and two sisters, Gladys (9) and Ellen (3).

Victor Pye passed through Peterborough East Station on 1 August 1917.  He wrote in the visitors’ book “I thank the two ladys who was so kind to me”.  He was serving on His Majesty’s Trawler “Charmouth”.

He enroled in the Royal Naval Reserve on 01 July 1916 and joined Halcyon II, an Admiralty controlled trawler operating out of Hull.  On an unknown date he transferred to HM Trawler Charmouth (366) and gained a rating of Deck Hand on 27 Dec 1917.  Charmouth was a hired trawler, Admiralty No 366; which was built in 1910, registered in Bristol (BL14) and was in service during the period 1914-1919 as a minesweeper. https://bit.ly/2IYTp4y

Victor gave his address as 19 Cathcart Street, Lowestoft in January 1918 and he was still involved with mine clearance work out of Lowestoft in April 1919.  He was discharged on 22 October that year.  Unusually he was awarded Naval Prize Money after the war, £11 13s 4d in November 1920 and a final payment of £17 10s 0d in October 1922, by which time he had moved to Milford Haven in South Wales.

Prize Money was awarded proportionately to all crew members of a vessel that either captured an enemy vessel or salvaged (rescued) allied vessel.  The Skipper was paid most but all shared the bounty.

He married Agnes Mary Williams in 1925 at Swansea and they had two daughters, Eileen Joan (1926) and Dorothy Lillian (1930).  His grand-daughter Vickie kindly informed us that Victor and Agnes separated in 1939 with Agnes moving to Bristol with her two daughters.

After the war, Victor stayed in the Merchant Navy, switching from a trawlerman to join the tanker SS British Diplomat in 1927.  He was later traced as an Able Seaman in the Royal Naval Reserve and awarded a Long Service and Good Conduct medal in 1942, whilst stationed at HMS Orlando, a shore base at Greenock, near Glasgow.  Victor died in Swansea in 1969, at the age of 69.

Victor’s father, Walter William Pye also served in the First World War with the Royal Engineers Inland Waterways Transport Corps, going to France in 1916, and being discharged at the end of the war in 1919.

Do you have an ancestor with the name Clarence Walter Victor Pye?  Could he be related to you?  Do get in touch if you can tell us more.