Mr & Mrs Robert SHERWOOD
To the Glory of God / A thank offering by Mr & Mrs Robert / Sherwood Mt. Pleasant . 1911 .
Robert Henry Hayes Sherwood, was born on 5th May 1879 in Goole.
Robert married Nellie Robert on 26th December1903.
The couple had two sons and four daughters.
They lived at Monrovia, Mount Pleasant Road, Goole.
Robert served as a ship's Captain and served on many ships, including Foxlove barquentine (barq); Monrovia; SS Altonia; SS Liberty; SS Ida; SS Equity; SS Blyth; SS Rother and SS Rye.
Robert died on 27th March 1951 in Anglesey, Wales.
Robert's cousin, Herbert Henry Sherwood was born in June 1879.
He lived at 62 New Close Lane, Goole.
Like his cousin, Robert, Herbert was also a ship's Captain and served on many ships, including the SS Exmoor; SS Calder; SS Don; SS Aire; SS Humber; SS Derwent and, with Robert, on the SS Rye.
The photograph on the right shows Herbert Henry Sherwood and the crew of the SS Rye.
Herbert died in Goole on 14th February 1940.
Family stories say that Robert Henry Hayes Sherwood and Herbert Henry Sherwood ran away to sea together and sailed in the SS Ida. (registered at Fowey, in Cornwall).
They were to work for the same shipping companies in the port of Goole.
Their trips to Europe would often be to Hamburg, Germany. It was to here both sailed with war looking likely in 1914. They tied up in the port and agreed should anything happen they would make a dash for freedom without waiting for each other. Herbert Henry being nearer to the dock entrance escaped. Unfortunately Robert and his crew did not. Both the crew and the SS Equity spent the next five years in captivity in Rhuleben POW Camp.
Accommodation at Rhuleben Camp
During the early part of WWI, thousands of British civilians and merchant seamen were interned at the Concentration Camp for British Civilian Prisoners of War, which was situated at Ruhleben racecourse, near Berlin, Germany. Amongst these men were many who had connections with Goole.
The S.S. Edwin Hunter was interned for a total of four and a half years in Germany, having unfortunately been in Kiel, Germany at the start of the war.. According to The Thames Star newspaper, the crew received full pay for the whole period of the ship's captivity when they left Goole on the ship's first post-war voyage on 14th April 1919.
Most of the internees never saw freedom from Ruhleben Camp until the end of the war, but the conditions which they created for themselves enabled them to maintain a unique way of life during their internment.
Robert's two sons John and Robert Evan were also interned for a while. They would become amongst the first, and the youngest, Prisoners of War.