Richard Simpson, who lived in Edith Street in North Shields, was just 18 when he served on the cruiser HMS Hampshire which was lost in 1916 while carrying Secretary of State for War Lord Kitchener on a mission to Russia, killing 643 men. Richard was one of only 12 survivors who spent four hours in a storm-lashed sea before struggling ashore on the Orkney Islands.
Richard died a year later, when the armed merchantman SS Thames was torpedoed off the east coast of England.
