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Gotts Surname Family History
Charles Robert 2258 Gotts - tree #017
Below is the RN service record for Charles Robert Gotts, born 4 February 1889 in Cromer. With this name and date of birth we can place Charles in tree #017 as the son of Charles Robert 407 and Irene Stallard.
Charles Robert signed on to the Royal Navy on 3 Nov 1904 to HMS Ganges, a shore-based training establishment, when he was 15.
In May 1906 he transferred to HMS Euralus, a training ship for the North America and West Indies Station. Whether he went to Halifax, Nova Scotia in the summer and Bermuda in the winter with the Squadron is not clear.
Transferring to HMS Resolution in Sept 1906 he would have been in the English Channel, and when it went into dock for a refit he was transferred to HMS Topaze.
This was a cruiser, bigger than a destroyer and had a crew of 298 men and 12 4" guns which fired 31-pound shells as well as two torpedo tubes. Currently I can't find where it was stationed, though it served in WW1 in the Mediterranean.
HMS Topaze
By Feb 1907 he would be 18 and signed on for 12 years, first as an Ordinary Seaman, then an Abled-bodied Seaman.
His conduct is marked as Very Good, but for some reason he decided to buy himself out of the Navy in June 1908.
We know that he emigrated to Australia in 1909: click here to see what we already know about him: