Issued to my maternal grandfather, James Hoyle Allen director of a family cotton milling business in Bury, Lancs, who served in the Dover Patrol in WW1, this box was for personal posessions, alongside a kitbag for clothing and bedding. With the fittings in the lid and pen tray it seems letters were expected to be an important use for it. It is a relic of the days of slung hammocks, then only used in small boats, with the cabins and bunks of today's sailors. Although sunk by enemy action 3 times he survived the Germans but was killed by Woodbine Willy, having taken up smoking whilst on military service. He lost two sons in WW2 and died just before my parents marriage in 1957.
Ditty Box
Contributed by Alan Ackroyd
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Comments
Thankyou very much for posting this. We have the ditty box of my maternal grandfather, also, that was given to him by his father who served in the Navy from 1909 to the early 20's. His ditty box isn't as complete - I'd guessed from the marks in the sides that it would have had a pen tray and inkwell space on the right, but that has been removed, and I was wondering what the three little notches inside the top and bottom edges of the lid were for... I remember Grandad telling me it had something in there for holding photographs in, and his father wasn't too happy when he discovered my Grandad had taken it out and dumped it overboard because he thought it was getting tatty! I'm sure he said it was made of wire though. Whatever that was, yours makes sense for how it would have been originally. Thankyou! With Grandad now gone at 87, he's left this box with Great Grandad's navy service record sheet in, as well as his own, and all kinds of letters and notes from the war (even bills from the outfitters, including glace kid shoes for £1 5s 7d!) and bits and bobs from his days as mate of Grimsby trawlers. Priceless...