Matron's Memories - the Gillingham naval orphans' home

By Richard Taylor

HILDA BRUNGER, for many years the much-loved matron at the Royal Naval and Marines Orphanage in Gillingham, died in November 1989 at the age of 93. She left behind her a treasured collection of photographs, news cuttings and letters which I am now fortunate enough to own.

The orphanage's foundation stone was laid in Oxford Road, Gillingham, in August 1911 by Admiral Sir Charles Drury, C-in-C at The Nore. It opened in 1912 and continued as an orphanage for forty years until it was taken over by the Royal Naval Benevolent Trust who turned it into Pembroke House, a residential home for ex-sailors, which is what it remains today.

Hilda met and befriended many leading figures in the naval life of Chatham, where the dockyard was only a short distance from the orphanage. She carefully saved letters from admirals and their wives, or sometimes just their signatures which she pasted into an unusual scrapbook. This was a copy of Oscar Parkes' Ships of the Royal Navy, a small but comprehensive book in landscape format published by Sampson Low. Hilda dated it 1930 and as well as using it to preserve signatures and news cuttings, she made notes under a number of the ships whose photographs appear in the book. She recorded, for example, that she visited the monitor MARSHAL SOULT in 1930 and the cruiser YORK in 1932, and that in 1933 she watched the aircraft carrier HERMES return from China. Other ships she visited included the cruiser ENTERPRISE on her return from the East Indies, the KENT, the FROBISHER, the battlecruiser REPULSE, the submarine depot ship LUCIA and 'by special permission' at Chatham Dockyard, the steam powered submarine K26 which she noted soon left on what she described as a 'world cruise'. This would have been the ship's eight-month voyage to Singapore to test her under tropical conditions in the 1920s. What with Christmas greetings from the 'Commodore and Ward Room Officers' of the Royal Naval Barracks at Chatham, Hilda must have been well known in many wardrooms around the fleet.

Also pasted into her book are a photo and cuttings relating to the TRIAD, a sloop in which she obviously had a special interest, probably because from November 1921 to December 1923 this was the ship in which Reginald Bingham, her husband-to-be, served as a recently-promoted petty officer telegraphist. The TRIAD was a 2,354-ton yacht, bought in 1915 and sold in 1933, an event that Hilda also recorded among other cuttings she kept.

Inside the covers of her scrapbook are pasted stamps and airmail stickers from 1930-31, most of them from Iraq or more specifically in some cases from Basrah. Others bear Bombay postmarks so Reg was no doubt serving in Middle Eastern and Indian waters at this time. His service record, available at The National Archives (ADM188/703) lists a large number of ships from the time he joined as a boy in 1913 but his details were transferred to card in 1927 so his ships after that point are not known. His long-distance courtship paid off, however, for he and Hilda married in 1933. She was aged 37; he was about a year younger.

Her scrapbook includes a July 1931 newspaper photo cutting showing three girls from the orphanage standing among sailors at a Navy Week rehearsal at Chatham. She identifies them as Jessie, Dora and Iris. Did these include Dora Riddingford who won a prize as a learner-darner, or Iris Poulton who gained an award for her good manners? These are two of the names that appear in a newspaper account of the March 1932 prizegiving, one of a number of other cuttings that Hilda preserved. The prizes on that occasion were handed out by Lady Tyrwhitt whose husband, Adm Sir Reginald Tyrwhitt, was among those watching.

By 1932 there were 42 children at the home and for the first time these included two boys. At Christmas that year toys were handed out by Mrs Cunningham, wife of Rear Adm Andrew Cunningham who handwrote Hilda a personal letter from the commodore's house:

Dear Matron, Herewith the sweets and the crackers. My wife is in bed with the flu & so has not been able to put the sweets into little bags - I trust they eat none the less well. I take this opportunity of wishing you all a very happy Xmas and the best of everything in the New Year. Yours sincerely, A B Cunningham

While this letter, which may have been written in 1931, is a small piece of unexciting trivia it illustrates the close links successive commanding officers had with the orphanage and shows that there was a very human side to the man who went on to command the British Mediterranean Fleet with such success in the Second World War. He was appointed commodore at Chatham in July 1931, continuing in that role until February 1933. He took a sympathetic interest in the welfare problems that arose from the pay cuts that drove the Atlantic Fleet to mutiny in September 1931, a side of his nature he demonstrated in his letter to Hilda.

Other letters that Hilda kept include one from naval chaplain Austin Lee, a controversial padre, as shown by a 1934 news cutting that she saved. This announced that figures at the Trafalgar Square demonstration against the Sedition Bill would include the Rev Lee, then described as a 'late' RN chaplain and 'a Socialist whose views and activities in the Navy caused such consternation'. The story added:

'Among naval officers a proposal was made to get him removed from the Service,. When it came to looking into the matter it was found the worst "crime" that could be alleged against him was that he had had tea with lower deck ratings and had tried to have the cases of several men undergoing punishment in the cells reviewed by the flagship... Mr Lee is now a popular figure at the Sailors' Palace, the British Sailors' Society depot in the Commercial-road.'

So Hilda Brunger met, and was obviously respected by, a very mixed group of people, some of whom went on to hold high office. Yellowing cuttings from Chatham's local newspapers suggest she was much loved for the work she did and she in turn was quick to praise the loyalty of her staff. At that 1932 prize day, the paper reported her as saying: 'They all worked together in making the Home a real home for all (applause).'

Three cheers for Hilda!

Other sources: Reginald Bingham's RN service record (ADM188/703), GRO death and marriage indexes, Royal Naval Benevolent Trust website (www.rnbt.org.uk) , Chatham News newspaper archive

Note: Medway Archives and Local Studies Centre holds a number of records relating to Pembroke House but distance has so far prevented the author from investigating these. He is nevertheless grateful for the listings provided by senior archive assistant Cindy O'Halloran