Frederick Marsh - HMS Tenedos

Posts : 18 Join date : 2017-06-19

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Frederick Marsh Suett, RN

Whilst casually looking over the site the other day, looking into HMS Tenedos, I came across a post by GARDNER1879 in 2023 re a Birmingham Zulu War veteran of the 2/21st whose recent death was reported in 1938. The writer also referred to another Birmingham Zulu War veteran mentioned in the same newspaper entry. He was called Frederick Marsh and was claimed to have served on HMS Tenedos. The writer quite rightly said that there was no man of that name on the Tenedos roll.
However, completely by chance, this week I came across another newspaper cutting which explains the matter and, for the sake of completion (!), here is the detail.

The man was actually Frederick Marsh Suett. After WW1 he seems to have informally dropped the surname "Suett" and occurs in local documents (like Birmingham electoral registers) simply as Frank Marsh.

Born in Coventry in 1861, he did indeed serve as a Boy 1cl. on HMS Tenedos during the Zulu War and received the medal without clasp. He was given a duplicate medal in 1916.

After his naval service ended in 1885, he held a number of different jobs (listed at one stage as an enameller) in the jewellery business in Birmingham but had joined the Royal Fleet Reserve, in which he served for over 30 years.
As such, he was called up at the age of 53 in WW1 and served on HMS Europa when she was based at Mudros during the Dardanelles campaign, 1915-16.
His age caught up with him in 1917 and he spent the last two years in the more peaceful surroundings of the Paravane Depot (anti-mine equipment) in Portsmouth.

Frederick Marsh/Suett died in Birmingham in September 1938 and was the subject of a number of newspaper obituaries, celebrating the fact that he was a long-lived Zulu War veteran and recalling his very long service in the navy (in one sphere or another).

One obituary was very poignant:

"In a small bedroom in a house back of 224 Great Russell Street, with pictures of old ships on the wall around him, Birmingham's oldest naval reservist lies dead.
A native of Coventry Frederick March [sic] came to Birmingham when he was seven and joined the navy when he was 15. For 44 years he helped Britannia rule the waves in active service or ready on the reserve list. Mr. Marsh saw active service in the Zulu Wars and was still defending his country in the Great War when he was on watch in the Dardanelles …. After being bed-ridden for seven months, he died yesterday. All the time he was ill he insisted on having his pictures of men-o-war, graceful compared with present day battle-monsters, on the wall. Beside his bed he kept a small tin. Inside, wrapped carefully in tissue paper, were his medals. From time to time he took them out and looked at them. Clasping them in shaking fingers, he used to look up at the picture of his old ship, HMS Tenedos. The light of battle came into his old eyes … When men in naval uniform carry his coffin on his last voyage to Witton [cemetery] tomorrow, his medals will be with him and his cap and the Union Jack, the flag for which he fought and for which he sacrificed a son."

[Birmingham Daily Gazette, 13th Sept. 1938]

The (poor) photo shows him in WW1 wearing his South Africa ribbon. There can't have been many men wearing the Zulu ribbon at Mudros in 1916!

Posts : 366 Join date : 2017-02-05 Location : Texas, U.S.A.

lydenburg,

Good work sorting out the confusion about his name. Where did you find his photograph?

Tom

Subject: Re: Frederick Marsh - HMS Tenedos Fri Nov 01, 2024 7:52 am

I'd also like to know where the photo came from - it looks like a newspaper photo.
Good work lydenburg.

Posts : 18 Join date : 2017-06-19

I managed to contact a descendant - didn't have anything else on Suett but did have a PHOTOCOPY of a photograph; hence poor quality. He also said that there was a photo of him in another Birmingham newspaper (details unknown) where he is called "Fuett".

» Private J Woodward 2/21st Regiment F Marsh HMS Tenedos
» Privates George Homes, John McNally, John Marsh iSandlwana casualty 2/24th Regiment
» D. Reynolds, P.O. 1st Cl. H.M.S. “Tenedos”