Alfred Charles Sandy – Mercantile Marine, H.M.S. Arlanza

Fireman Alfred Charles Sandy – Mercantile Marine, H.M.S. Arlanza

Alfred Charles Sandy was born in 1893 in Swansea, the son of Charles Sandy and Eliza Jane Gowman. His early years were spent in the busy streets around High Street, where dock labour, lodging houses, and multigenerational families formed the fabric of Edwardian Swansea’s maritime community.

Family Life

1911 Census

The 1911 Census records the Sandy household at 2 Union Court, High Street, Swansea, where Mr. Charles Sandy, aged 46 and born in Plymouth, worked as a Dock Labourer, and his wife, Mrs. Eliza Sandy, also 46, assisted in the home. Their daughters Annice, 25, and Lizzie, 25, were likewise assisting at home, while Alfred, aged 19, was employed as a Dock Labourer. Also present were their grandson Charlie Burgess, aged 5, and a lodger, Owen Williams, aged 63. The census portrays a close‑knit household rooted in Swansea’s dockside labouring life.

In 1914, Alfred married Margaret Ann Givlin, establishing his own household shortly before entering wartime service.

Service at Sea – The Mercantile Marine and H.M.S. Arlanza

The Mercantile Marine

During the First World War, the Mercantile Marine (later the Merchant Navy) formed the backbone of Britain’s maritime supply chain. Firemen like Alfred worked in the ship’s boiler rooms, feeding coal into the furnaces that powered the great steam engines. It was gruelling, dangerous work, performed in intense heat and confined spaces, essential to keeping troopships, supply vessels, and armed merchant cruisers moving.

H.M.S. Arlanza – From Ocean Liner to Warship

The vessel on which Alfred served, H.M.S. Arlanza, had begun life as a luxury ocean liner of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, launched in 1911 and placed on the South America route. Built by Harland & Wolff, she was a large, modern ship of 14,622 tons, with three screws driven by a combination of triple‑expansion engines and a low‑pressure turbine.

With the outbreak of war, Arlanza was requisitioned by the Admiralty and commissioned on 24 April 1915 as an Armed Merchant Cruiser, fitted with six 6‑inch guns and two 6‑pounders. She joined the 10th Cruiser Squadron, part of the Northern Patrol, enforcing the blockade of Germany in the cold waters between Scotland, Iceland, and Norway.

In October 1916, Arlanza struck a mine after leaving Archangelsk, damaging her bows, but she managed to return to Britain under her own power. From July 1917 until the Armistice, she served on Atlantic convoy escort duties, protecting merchant shipping from U‑boats. Her work was vital, dangerous, and relentless — and the firemen in her boiler rooms kept her moving through every mile of it.

Death and Burial

British Army and Navy Birth, Marriage and Death Records 

Alfred Charles Sandy
Cwmgelli Cemetery, Swansea
credit - findagrave

Alfred Charles Sandy died on 1 October 1918 in Liverpool, his death recorded as due to disease. His body was brought home to Swansea and laid to rest at Cwmgelli Cemetery, where he is commemorated among the city’s wartime burials.