KEANE, Stephen Vincent

Ship's Steward Assistant, H.M.S. Victory
Service No: 347362
Died: 25/01/1916
Age: 25

Interred in Bangor Cemetery

Stephen Vincent Keane was born in Helen’s Bay, on 11th July 1890. He was the son of Richard Keane, chief Boatswain at the Coastguard Station and Elizabeth Keane nee Sumner.  Stephen was only 10 when his mother Elizabeth died in 1900, the family then living in Whitehead. His father and family later moved to Bangor where they lived in Dufferin Avenue.

Stephen joined the Royal Navy in Portsmouth on 6th December 1905 as a Ship Steward’s Boy serving first on HMS Victory. His brother Richard enlisting the following day. On his 18th birthday, 11th July 1908, he then signed on for contiuous service as Ship Steward’s Assistant.

British light cruiser HMS Glasgow at Valparaiso in Chile before the
Battle of Coronel on 1 November 1914.

He served on various ships and on the outbreak of war serving on HMS Glasgow which took part in the Battle of Coronel and Battle of the Falklands.  In December 1914 he then transferred to HMS Canopus which then took part in the Dardanelles campaign.

HMS Canopus which fired the first shots of the Battle of the Falklands before transferring to the Mediterranean where she took part in the Naval operations in the Dardanelles campaign.

Stephen took ill and on 5th May was transferred to hospital at Malta were he was diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis and invalided home on 9th June 1915.

He died at home on 25th January 1916, his father passing only two weeks earlier, and was buried in Bangor Cemetery.