Owen Percy Clarke was born in Lancashire in 1866. In 1894, Owen had qualified as a Master in the Merchant Navy. By 1901, he was living in East Ham with his wife Annie, an Irish woman born in Galway, their three year old daughter, Beatrice, and Annie’s widowed mother.
Clarke had been the captain of the steam ship S.S Mesaba in April 1911 when it warned the Titanic about ice flows. Two hours later the Titanic hit an iceberg and sunk with the loss of 1517 passengers and crew.
On 1st September 1918, Owen was the commander of the S.S. Mesaba of the Atlantic Transport Line when it was torpedoed by the German submarine UB 118 and sank in St. George's Channel, off the south-west coast of Ireland while making a convoy voyage from Liverpool to Philadelphia. Twenty lives were lost.
At this time of his death, Owen’s wife was living at 98 Wellesley Road, Ilford.
Research by Redbridge Museum
Sources:
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Ancestry.com
www.atlantictransportline.us, Ships, S.S. Mesaba
www.encyclopedia-titanica.org : Titanic Research Articles, The Mesaba File
www.benfleethistory.org.uk : The S. S. Mesaba. Warns The R.M.S. Titanic