Following on from last week's post on the Dead Man's Penny, this week one of our volunteer researchers has dug a little deeper into one of the pennies that survive in Aberystwyth.
A BBC online article of 16th October 2014 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-mid-wales-29633181) gave the names on two dead man’s pennies – one of these was Llewellyn Hughes, a “sailor who went down with his ship.” Gwyn Evans, a British Legion member, was given the coins by a builder who found them during building work on a cottage in Penparcau and wanted to give them back to relatives, in collaboration with Reverend Ian Girling from Holy Trinity Church, Aberystwyth. The article notes that Llewellyn’s mother lived on Prospect Street. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission website mentions S. S. Eloby and his mother’s address: Moel y Don, Prospect Street – as shown in the screenshot:
Hughes had a lucky escape on Thursday 4th November 1915 when his troopship S. S. Mercian was shelled by U-38 in the Western Mediterranean, documented in a list of British merchant and fishing vessels lost or damaged during WW1
http://www.naval-history.net/WW1NavyBritishBVLSMN1510.htm
After a hospital stay, he became a wireless operator on the Liverpool registered steamer SS Eloby. By unfortunate coincidence and less than two years later, this steamer was carrying explosives to Alexandria when U-38 struck again on 19th July 1917. Eloby went down seventy-five miles SExE of Malta with the loss of 156 men, including Llewellyn Hughes, aged 27. He is remembered on the Tower Hill Memorial, London.
http://www.naval-history.net/WW1NavyBritishBVLSMN1510.htm
Information about the Eloby and its wreck site can be found on:
https://wrecksite.eu/ https://wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?138182
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