Lot Essay
Sold with several poignant souvenirs of Boy Telegraphist Mullins' short-lived Naval career, including a most attractive and unusual R.N. Telegraphist's sweetheart's badge, in silk and enamel; his Ganges Training Ship cap tally; and a Christmas 1915 card from H.M.S. Queen Mary.
Boy Telegraphist Sydney Herbert Mullins was born in Hull, Yorkshire in February 1899 and worked as a Post Office Telegraph messenger prior to enlisting in the Royal Navy as a Boy 2nd Class in November 1914. Following training at three Shore Establishments, he was posted to the Battle Cruiser H.M.S. Queen Mary, in which ship he was killed in action at the Battle of Jutland on 31.5.1916, when her 'A' and 'B' turrets received direct hits which ignited the magazines:
'The Queen Mary seemed to roll slowly to starboard, her masts and funnels gone, and with a huge hole in her side. She listed again, the hole disappeared beneath the water, which rushed into her and turned her completely over. A minute and a half, and all that could be seen of the Queen Mary was her keel with her propellers still slowly revolving high in the air. In another moment, as the Tiger and New Zealand were smothered in a shower of black debris, there was nothing left of her but a dark pillar of smoke rising stemlike till it spread hundreds of feet high like a vast palm tree' (Eyewitness account refers).
The total loss of life was 57 Officers and 1209 Ratings. Only six men, three of them Officers, were saved.
Lance-Corporal A.H. Mullins, the brother of Sydney, served in France from February to November 1918.
Boy Telegraphist Sydney Herbert Mullins was born in Hull, Yorkshire in February 1899 and worked as a Post Office Telegraph messenger prior to enlisting in the Royal Navy as a Boy 2nd Class in November 1914. Following training at three Shore Establishments, he was posted to the Battle Cruiser H.M.S. Queen Mary, in which ship he was killed in action at the Battle of Jutland on 31.5.1916, when her 'A' and 'B' turrets received direct hits which ignited the magazines:
'The Queen Mary seemed to roll slowly to starboard, her masts and funnels gone, and with a huge hole in her side. She listed again, the hole disappeared beneath the water, which rushed into her and turned her completely over. A minute and a half, and all that could be seen of the Queen Mary was her keel with her propellers still slowly revolving high in the air. In another moment, as the Tiger and New Zealand were smothered in a shower of black debris, there was nothing left of her but a dark pillar of smoke rising stemlike till it spread hundreds of feet high like a vast palm tree' (Eyewitness account refers).
The total loss of life was 57 Officers and 1209 Ratings. Only six men, three of them Officers, were saved.
Lance-Corporal A.H. Mullins, the brother of Sydney, served in France from February to November 1918.