Abstract | This happy wedding group are pictured outside Moss Cottage, Queens Corner just over 100 years ago, on September 29th 1916. Tragically both the bridgegroom Archibold Percy Green, the Best Man Henry Pullen and one other of the wedding guests were to lose their lives when their ship RFA INDUSTRY was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine in the Irish Sea on October 18th 1918 - less than a month before the war ended.
The loss of the INDUSTRY was a major tragedy on the Island as six Mersea men lost their lives - Archibold Percy Green, Alfred John Mole, Frederick Westhorpe Mole, Reginald John Mole, Henry William Pullen and Harold Frederick Stoker. Their bodies were never recovered. They are all commemorated on the Plymouth Naval Memorial and West Mersea War Memorial.
Those pictured L-R are Horace Green (Grooms brother), Maud Mussett (Neighbour), Oscar 'Ock' Green (Groom's father), Ellen Green (Groom's sister, bridesmaid), Percy Green (Groom), Lucy Hoy (Bride), Peter Hoy, Mrs Peter Hoy, Hetty Hoy, Henry 'Stony' Pullen (Best man), Ivy Hoy, 'Jumbo' Hoy, Ivy Green and Bert 'Cootie' Hoy.
There is much more detail on the ship and those lost in her, in Roger Bullen's book 'Not just a name', available from Mersea Museum.
Published in Mersea Life October 2016, Local page 83.
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