William James Besford was born on 10th March 1889 at Scratby, Norfolk, a village on the coast north of Great Yarmouth. His parents were James and Jane Besford. He was baptised at Ormesby St Margaret on 28th April 1889, and in 1901 the family was living at Newport Road, Hemsby.
In June 1912 William married Gertrude Grace Marion Turner. The marriage was registered at Mutford, the district that covered Lowestoft. The births of three children were registered with the mother’s maiden name Turner: Lewis J. F. Besford (1913), Grace E. J. Besford (1914) and Dorothy C. Y. Besford (1918). Dorothy married Albert E. Bagge in Lothingland, the district that covered Lowestoft, in 1940.
On 15th February 1915 William joined the Royal Naval Reserve as a skipper, with the service number 1186 S.A. He served on the requisitioned trawlers Young Archie, Unity and Sheet Lightning, and was “specially noted for his good services rendered in connection with mine clearance on the Belgian Coast”. He was discharged on 9th November 1919.
By 1939 William and Gertrude were living at 68 Southwell Road, Lowestoft. In the Second World War William served in the Royal Naval Reserve again, as a temporary boom skipper from 15th July 1940 and a temporary chief boom skipper from 30th June 1942 [in charge of vessels that laid and tended the nets and booms guarding harbour entrances].
The loss of the Bucentaur
In 1947 William was the skipper of the Lowestoft steam trawler Bucentaur, LT 170. She was built in 1907 by Cochrane and Sons at Selby for the Consolidated Steam Fishing and Ice Company of Grimsby, and registered at Grimsby as GY 339. She was requisitioned as a minesweeper in August 1914 and returned to her owners in 1919. In January 1925 she was transferred to Lowestoft. She was requisitioned again in November 1939, as an auxiliary patrol trawler, and returned to her owners in January 1940.
In the early hours of 21st May 1947, on a fishing trip in the North Sea, the Bucentaur was in collision in dense fog with the American cargo and troop ship Wilson Victory, which was sailing from Bremerhaven. The Bucentaur was lost with all ten of her crew. William was 58.
Among the crew lost with him were:
- Frederick Jeremiah Warford, mate, aged 46
- Benjamin Arthur Crowford, second engineer, aged 59
- Ernest George Flowers, third hand, aged 43
- Michael Dann, cook, aged 67
- James Sergeant, deck hand, aged 67
- Frederick Samuel Durrant, trimmer, aged 26
No one aboard the Bucentaur was heard from again. The Wilson Victory recorded a collision with an unidentified vessel a few miles south of the Pit Buoy, a fishing ground about 148 miles north-east of Lowestoft. She searched for almost four hours and picked up an upturned lifeboat marked LT 170. A German trawler later found the Bucentaur’s bridge top, ship’s bell and bracket near the Pit Buoy, and a Lowestoft blacksmith who had worked on the bell and bracket for the Bucentaur that March identified them.
In 1954 a court in New York, hearing a case brought by Irene M. Wood on behalf of the estates of William and his crew, found that the Wilson Victory had struck the Bucentaur. It held both vessels at fault: the Wilson Victory for keeping up fifteen knots in fog with no lookout in the bow, and the Bucentaur for sounding no fog signals. As master, William was held responsible for the Bucentaur’s fault, and the award to his estate was halved.
We do not know how William James Besford was related to the other Besfords of Norfolk and Suffolk. Please get in touch if you can help.