Frank Horace Culver

Date of Birth:            1887
Place of Birth:           Hackney London
Service Number:     678665
Rank:                            Chief Steward
Service:                       Mercantile Marine
Died:                            1919
Death Location:      Southampton

Life Before The War
Frank was born in 1887 in Hackney London his parents were Ebenezer John and Sarah Ann.

Ebenezer was born in Bishopsgate, London in 1850 and died in 1899.  Sarah, nee Brice, was born in Stepney, London in 1860, dying in 1906.  They were married in West Ham Essex in 1881.  Ebenezer was employed as Clerk.  They had 4 children in all, Frank’s 3 siblings were:

Stanley  b.1893
Constance  b.1883
Sidney  b.1885 – d.1891.

In the census of 1881 Frank’s father was a Fish Salesman and lodging in Tower Hamlets.

By the time of the 1891 census the family were living at  57 Lockhurst Street, Hackney, London in 4 rooms.  Ebenezer’s mother, Jane Mears, a widow aged 74, was living with them and is recorded as a ‘lodger’ living on her own means.  Ebenezer was working as a Mercantile Clerk,

The census of 1901 shows Frank living at 84 Clarence Road, Hackney.  His mother Sarah is now a widow, Constance was working as a Commercial Clerk and Frank was a Junior Shipping Clerk.  They were living in three rooms.

By the 1911 census Frank was at sea.

Frank married Alice Bornet in Southampton in 1913.  They had 2 children – Alice born in 1918, and Frank junior who was born in 1919 and died in 1953 in Southampton.

Military Service
Frank joined the Mercantile Marines and served as a chief steward on H.M.S. Armandale Castle, a passenger steamship built in 1903 in Govan, Scotland.  She was requisitioned by the Royal Navy as an armed mercantile cruiser on 2nd August 1914.  She was returned to commercial service in 1919 and laid up at Netley in 1935, reprieved for one voyage and scrapped in 1936 at Blythe by Hugh Bulckow Limited.

Frank died in Southampton on 18th February 1919 and is buried in Southampton Old Cemetery:

Probate  of  £165 was given to his wife on 26th May 1919.  Her address was given as Bashley Lodge, Clifton Road, Regents Park, Southampton.

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