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Jack Cornwell
V.C.
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Jack Cornwell |
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1916 John Cornwell. 
John Cornwell was the second son of a Manor Park couple who had both originated from country areas and had settled in the area. John Travers Cornwell had always been called 'Jack', had left school at fourteen and had a passion to be a sailor. His father - Eli, despite being well over military age had rejoined the army at the outbreak of The Great War, his elder brother was a factory worker and Jack was working as a van boy for Brooke Bond's. Jack's yearning for the sea saw him enter a recruiting office carrying references from both his headmaster and employer extolling his excellent character and he asked to join the Navy. As the Kitchener posters stated, 'his country needed him' and Jack was accepted into the 'senior service'. So in October 1915, Jack Cornwell and a group of older boys left Manor Park by train heading for training in the Royal Navy. Jack was present during the Battle of Jutland in May 1916 on board HMS 'Chester'. The report from his Commanding Officer - Admiral Beatty - stated the instance of devotion to duty by, Boy (1st Class) John Travers Cornwell who was mortally wounded early in the action, but nethertheless remained standing alone at a most exposed post, quietly awaiting orders till the end of the action, with the gun's crew dead and wounded around him. He was under 16½ years old. I regret that he has since died, but I recommend his case for special recognition in justice to his memory and as an acknowledgement of the high example set by him. Jack died in a Grimsby hospital, to where he had been carried, his mother had received a telegram from the Admiralty and was on her way to him, but he died before she arrived with his last words 'Give my mother my love, I know she is coming...' The family having little money buried him quietly, but when the story became known, the nation demanded his recognition and Jack was re-buried in September amid dense crowds in Manor Park Cemetery with a 'splendid' funeral after the King had granted the presenting of the Victoria Cross posthumously to the young hero. His father was buried in the same spot a month later. Jack Cornwell is still remembered each year in a small ceremony at the cemetery marking the event of his heroic death and there is a 'Jack Cornwell Street' in Newham's Manor Park which boasts a pub called 'The Victoria Cross'.
© Lal Cook. |
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