Royal Navy – HMS Canada
John St Erme Cardew was born on 3 December 1891 in Cheltenham to George Arthur Cardew MRCS and Alice Sophia Mary Cardew (née Barrett). He was educated privately and at the Royal Naval College, Osborne House, Isle of Wight. His siblings were Arthur Barrett (1888-1974) and Dorothy Mary (1893-1979). His father had been a Senior House Surgeon at Cheltenham Hospital, and four further generations on the paternal ancestral line had been Chaplains. His four times Great Grandfather, Cornelius, had been Chaplain of St Erme, Chaplain to the Sheriff of Cornwall, and to the Prince of Wales. John’s middle name probably stems from the family connection with St Erme. His mother died in 1930, and his father in 1934.
John was appointed midshipman in the Royal Navy on 15 September 1909 and served in the defence armoured cruiser, which was employed from the latitude of Capel Verde to the Cape of Good Hope and back as escort to the Balmoral Castle, carrying his Royal Highness Prince Arthur William Patrick Albert, Duke of Connaught, to open the first session of the Union Parliament in 1910. He became acting sub-Lieutenant on 15 September 1912 and Lieutenant on 15 June 1914.
John saw service on HMS Lizard from August 1914 to July1915 and was present on the Lizard destroyer at the Battle of Heligoland Bight on 28 August 1914, being the first person to observe the approach of the German Fleet at the time when the German light cruisers, Koln, Mainz and Ariadne were sunk; and at the first bombardment of the Belgian coast 22-24 October 1914. He was appointed to the HMS Canada battleship on 17 June 1915; invalided home on 15 September 1915; and placed upon the retired list on account of ill health on 31 July 1916.
John died of illness at 5 Fauconberg Villas, Cheltenham, his parent’s home, on 9 February 1917, aged 25 and was buried at St Mary’s Church, Great Witcombe, on the east of the church.
John is commemorated on the Cheltenham War Memorial.
His brother, Captain Arthur Barrett Cardew, Royal Army Medical Corps, received the Military Cross during the Great War and two of his cousins died in service. Basil St Merryn Cardew was killed aboard HMS Monmouth at the Battle of Coronel off the coast of Chile on 1 November 1914, aged 19, and is commemorated on his parent’s grave at St Mary’s Church, Prestbury; and Lieutenant John Haydon Cardew, who also received the Military Cross, died of wounds in Belgium on 4 October 1917, and is buried at Dozinghem Military Cemetery, Belgium (his death is listed at 5 October 1917 in the UK Soldiers Died in the Great War and at Dozinghem Military Cemetery).
Researched by Baden Russell
Baden wishes to thank and acknowledge Dave and Jimmy James for their website Leaving Cheltenham and Joe Devereux and Graham Sacker for their book ‘Leaving all that was dear‘