Fryatt exhibition comes to Ypres for 110th anniversary

This July, historian and collector Mark P. Baker brings his exhibition on Captain Charles Algernon Fryatt to the Saint George's Memorial Church Hall in Elverdingestraat, Ypres. It runs from Wednesday 22 July to Tuesday 28 July and brings together artefacts produced at the time to tell his story.

Fryatt was one of only three British subjects whose bodies were formally repatriated after the Great War, alongside the Unknown Warrior and the nurse Edith Cavell. His story is far less widely known than theirs.

A master mariner in the Mercantile Marine, Fryatt commanded the SS Brussels. In an earlier encounter he had attempted to ram the German submarine U-33 rather than surrender, an action recognised at the highest levels in Britain. In June 1916 five German destroyers captured his ship off the Hoek van Holland. He was court-martialled at Bruges, convicted as a franc-tireur and shot by firing squad on 27 July 1916.

In July 1919 his body was exhumed from Assebroek cemetery and returned to his home town of Harwich, where five memorial services were held over four days.

To mark the 110th anniversary of his death, Alex Fryatt, great-grandson of the Captain’s younger brother William, has arranged for a memorial plaque to be placed in the church. It will be dedicated during the service on the morning of Sunday 26 July.

Full details of the exhibition are available on the Saint George’s Memorial Church website.

Members who would like to learn more about Fryatt can search his name in the Searchable Magazine Archive, which brings together how the case was reported at the time, the post-war repatriation, and later references across Stand To! and the Bulletin.