Wireless Operator Thomson Dickinson

Wireless Operator Thomson Athol Dickinson, Mercantile Marine. He was lost at sea aboard the S.S. “Vine Branch” on 11th April 1917, aged 22. He was the son of James and Hannah Dickinson of Longhirst and is commemorated on the Tower Hill Memorial, London.  The ship was a general cargo vessel of 3,442 tons built in 1896 by William Doxford & Sons of Sunderland. She was torpedoed and sunk by U-55 off South West Ireland on voyage from Dakar to Liverpool carrying a cargo of nitrates and frozen meat. All 44 crew were lost.