Hyatt Family Tree

George enlisted in the Royal Marine Light Infantry, Portsmouth, 26 May, 1874 and was assigned to the Portsmouth Division where he was given Register Number 945. He was discharged in 1895 after completing 21 years service at home and overseas.

During that time he served in the Portsmouth Division and aboard HMS Hibernia, HMS Asia, HMS Boadicea, HMS Thalia, HMS St Vincent, HMS Raleigh and HMS Tamar. His Zulu War medal was awarded onboard Thalia while returning home with Boadicea's crew from South Africa in 1882, after the first Boer War. It was his sole medal entitlement.

In late 1878 he was sent with HMS Boadicea for duty at the Cape of Good Hope. George served on board 'Boadicea' as a Private in the Zulu War for which he received the South Africa Medal without clasp (confirmed on the Medal Roll.) He also served on 'Boadicea' during the 1st Boer War. During the 1st Boer War Private Waskett, along with all the other marines, remained on board the ship and did not accompany the Naval Brigade.

George Waskett's long service was the beginning of a family tradition of soldiering in the Royal Marine Light Infantry. Before the Great War His eldest daughter married a RMLI private serving on the Royal Yacht Albert and Victoria (he was to die in 1916 and is buried at Haslar).

His two eldest sons both joined the RMLI, and both earned LSGC medals in the 1920's, having reached the ranks of Sergeant and Colour Sergeant respectively.

One son was with the Royal Marine Brigade that landed at Ostend in August 1914, during the first three weeks of the Great War, and again at Dunkerque. He was captured by the Germans during the Defence of Antwerp. He spent the whole of the war in captivity.

The second son served on HMS Euryalus and HMS Minotaur (among others), he received the King of Italy's Medal while on Euryalus for the rescue of victims of the Messina Earthquake in 1908 which killed many thousands in Southern Italy.

Both sons earned Great War medals.

There is much more research to do...

The "Boadicea" referred to here was the third of that name. She was a 16-gun screw corvette, launched at Portsmouth in 1875 and in 1905 the Boadicea was broken up.

In the early part of her career the Boadicea took part in the Zulu War. 16 of her officers and 378 men under Commodore Francis Romilly supplemented the Naval Brigade at the battle of Ginginhlovo, March 1881. This was quite a battle, over 1,000 Zulu warriors died, yet the British had only 52 casualties (Unlike the battle at Rorke's drift the previous year, where there were 100 fit and 40 injured British were slaughtered facing 3,000 Zulus).

On 22 March 1880 HMS Boadicea, along with the gun boats 'Forester' and 'Firebrand' bombarded the bush at Bantanga on the West Coast of Africa, and a party from 'Boadicea' went ashore and burnt the town belonging to 'King Jack'. As the party was on the beach preparing to return to the ship, they were fired upon and one marine and one seaman were killed.

In 1881 the Broadicea assisted in this Boer war by landing of the Naval Brigade. On January 6th 128 officers and men, two machine guns, and a couple of rocket tubes proceeded to the front, under Commodore Francis Romilly.

The service referred to above began in 1878 when the Boadicea, commanded by Captain the Hon. Assheton Curzon Howe, and flying the flag of Rear Admiral the Hon. Edmund Fremantle, was at the head of a fleet of seven English vessels and one German ship taking part in the blockade of the Zanzibar Littoral. This action was associated with the suppression of slavery but was generally uneventful. On November 6th the Boadicea's pinnace, commanded by Lieutenant Walter Clifton Slater, captured a large slave dhow off Pemba. It had 41 slaves on board, and was not brought to until shots had been shot on both sides.

In September 1890 nine German traders were murdered in Vitu, a small state about 230 miles north of Zanzibar. On October 24th the boats of the Boadicea under Captain the Hon. Assheton Curzon Howe, and those of two other ships, proceeded to Baltia and burnt the village. On October 26th a Naval Brigade of 700 seamen and marines were landed under the personal command of Vice-Admiral the Hon. Edmund Femantle. Meeting with some brisk resistance en route, the expedition captured the town of Vitu on October 27th, Gunner George Alfred Jenning, of the Boadicea blowing up the town gate with gun cotton. The town and the Sultan's house were burned, and the brigade returned to their ships, having lost 12 men wounded and developed several cases of sunstroke.

George Waskett's service record is available from the National Archives at:
http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/SearchUI/Details?uri=D7740802