Military Monday – William Samuel St John, RN

This wonderful photo from a relative of my husband.

He’s my husband’s great-grandfather, William Samuel St John. I had found him in the 1861 census as a boy in Devon, and in the 1881 census as a waiter in an in near Bishopsgate in London, but this certainly isn’t a waiters uniform. Finally found him in the 1871 census as a Boy 1st Class on HMS Foudroyant – he was way down the search results as the given name was entered as “Willm”. At the time of this picture Foudroyant was being used for gunnery training. Here she is in 1817, very smart.

She doesn’t look quite so smart here, at the end of her life.

I haven’t found his full Navy career yet, or found when he moved to London. He died in 1893, aged only 39, in Dartford, Kent. His daughter Lilian St John was my husband’s maternal grandmother.