Page 21 - Captain William Strike of Porthleven

In old age and at the end of his sea-going life, Hannibal and his wife Harriett found a
home in London at the Trinity Alms House in the Mile End Road, a very old charitable
endowment for retired mariners.

The sea-going experiences of three further sons are described below.

Death in Naples
William Strike’s second son – another William – was a year younger than his brother
Hannibal. William junior started out in life as a shoemaker but, in his mid 20s seems
to have decided to join the family sea-going tradition. In 1865, at the age of 27, just
four years after marrying, William was employed as a seaman aboard his brother
Hannibal’s schooner, the ‘Cambria’. Tragically, on October 26 William died at the
British Hospital in Naples: he is buried in the British Protestant Cemetery there. The
death certificate indicates that it was Hannibal, master of the ‘Cambria’ who notified
the demise of his brother to the British Consulate in Naples. Equally tragic is the fact
that William junior and his wife had four children between 1862 and 1865 three of
whom – all boys named William – died in very early infancy. The surviving child,
Annie Strike, lived with her maternal grandmother in Porthleven and worked as a net
mender. At about 19 years of age Annie emigrated to Australia and lived for a while
with members of her mother’s family, the Hockings who had emigrated previously. In
1890 Annie, pictured below, married William Edmund McGay in Adelaide. Annie died
in Adelaide in 1933, aged 69.

Shipwreck in South Africa

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