1900s-1945
Sidney Everest was born on 17th April 1893, the son of John and Ann Everest. Within days of turning eighteen he joined the Royal Navy, and he went on to serve with the rating of Cook's Mate. His service numbers were L2755 and M3751, and his posting was to H.M.T.B. No.12, a small coastal vessel of the kind the Navy used for close-in torpedo work.
The ship he served in had begun life under a different name and a different classification. She was originally Moth, one of the Cricket class of coastal destroyers — a class that eventually numbered 36 vessels. In 1906 the whole class was re-rated as 1st class torpedo boats, and Moth became TB.12. Boats of this type were 171 feet long and displaced 245 tons, could reach 26 knots, and carried two 12-pound guns together with three 18-inch torpedo tubes. A crew of 35 was needed to work them. Her sister TB.10 had likewise started out as a coastal destroyer, under the name Greenfly.
By the summer of 1915 the two boats were operating together in the North Sea, and on 10th June 1915 both were lost while believed to be on patrol. The cause was never established with certainty: the vessels may have struck a mine, or they may have been sunk by a German U-boat. Sidney Everest was among those lost that day, at the age of 22. As his body was not recovered for burial, he is commemorated on the Chatham Naval Memorial.
He does not appear on the Electoral Register, but his name is not forgotten. Alongside the Leigh War Memorial, he is remembered at Chiddingstone Causeway, on the Penshurst memorial, and on the Edenbridge Hospital War Memorial — a young sailor whose loss was marked across several communities.
Page last updated 7 November 2008.