William Laney, was born in Old Basing on 9th November 1889. At the time of the 1901 census, he was living at Pies Farm in Farringdon with his mother, Annie, her husband Thomas and sisters Alice and Elizabeth. Ten years later, William was a farm labourer in Upper Farringdon.

William joined the Royal Navy and was K/19409 Stoker 1st Class Laney on HMS Invincible when it went to the Falklands in December 1914. The ship was one of those that destroyed the German Navy’s Scharnhorst and Gneisenau on the 8th December but it must have been about that time that William became ill.

He died on 27th December, aged 27, and was buried at sea. His mother, Annie, being his next of kin. The Alton Gazette of 8th January 1916 recorded ‘William Laney, 1st class stoker, HMS Invincible, died of pneumonia, 27th Dec.1914’.

He gained the 1914-15 Star and the British War and Victory Medals. Stoker 1st Class William Laney is commemorated on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial.

Source: “The Remembered Ones of the Great War”, 2014, The Alton and Villages Local History Forum (with permission)