Location Information
Standing on Southsea Common overlooking the promenade in Portsmouth, Hampshire, is the Portsmouth Naval Memorial. It commemorates nearly 10,000 naval personnel of the First World War and almost 15,000 of the Second World War who were lost or buried at sea. More than 45,000 men and women lost their lives while serving with the Royal Navy during the First World War. After the Armistice, the naval authorities and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission were determined to find an appropriate way to commemorate naval personnel who had no grave.

Visiting Information
The Memorial is situated on Southsea Common overlooking the promenade, and is accessible at all times. A copy of the Memorial Register is kept at the Civic Offices in Guildhall Square and may be consulted there. memorialsinportsmouth.co.uk/southsea/naval.htm. Disabled access to the Second World War section of the memorial is possible via the Common and the ramps at the rear of the memorial. For further information regarding disabled access, contact Enquiries Section on 01628 507200.

History
AAfter the First World War, an appropriate way had to be found of commemorating those members of the Royal Navy who had no known grave, the majority of deaths having occurred at sea where no permanent memorial could be provided.

An Admiralty committee recommended that the three manning ports in Great Britain - Chatham, Plymouth and Portsmouth - should each have an identical memorial of unmistakable naval form, an obelisk, which would serve as a leading mark for shipping. The memorial was unveiled by the Duke of York, the future George VI, on 15 October 1924. In 1916, the prince was serving as a Midshipman on HMS Collingwood during the Battle of Jutland.

After the Second World War it was decided that the naval memorials should be extended to provide space for commemorating the naval dead without graves of that war, but since the three sites were dissimilar, a different architectural treatment was required for each. Names of those lost in the Second World War are recorded on panels set into the low walls of an enclosure added to the north, leading to a barrel-vaulted pavilion on each side. The extension was unveiled by the Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, on 29 April 1953. Portsmouth Naval Memorial commemorates nearly 10,000 sailors of the First World War and almost 15,000 of the Second World War.

Among those commemorated at Portsmouth are most of the crew of HMS Bulwark, who died in 1914, and 127 men who lost their lives when the mine layer HMS Princess Irene exploded while anchored near Sheerness on 27 May 1915.

Our dead commemorated here (click name to view):

Compiled by Ken Austin from information supplied by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. www.cwgc.org.

We make this information freely available to genealogists and Family Historians, but at no time may this information be used on a pay site or sold for profit.