More about George Francis Cholmley

Lieutenant Commander George Cholmley Royal Navy was the son of Mr Alfred and Mrs Anne Cholmley, nee Simpson, of Place Newton, Rillington, Yorkshire. He was the husband of Mrs Violet P M Cholmley, nee Thomson, formerly of 2 Balgillo Terrace, Dundee and Thorpe Bassett, Rillington and they had met when he was serving in the Dundee Submarine Flotilla based in HMS Alecto in 1914. He was the Commanding Officer of HM Submarine E3 and had sailed from Harwich on 16 October 1914 to seek out German warships operating between Borkum and the River Ems. His submarine was partially submerged attempting to attack a group of destroyers when E3’s conning tower was sighted by the submerged German submarine U-27. E3 was stalked by U-27 until the German submarine had closed to 300 yards and fired a single torpedo. In the explosion E3 broke in two and sank immediately. This was the first sinking of one submarine by another. Twenty eight men were lost and there were no survivors. George Cholmley is commemorated on Panel 1 of the Portsmouth Naval Memorial on Southsea Common, Hampshire.

Extract from The Roll of Honour, A Biographical record of all members of His Majesty’s Naval and Military Forces who have fallen in the War, by the Marquis de Ruvigny, Volume I., The Standard Art Book Company, Ltd, December, 1916:
CHOLMLEY, GEORGE FRANCIS, Lieutenant-Commander, R.N., 2nd son of Alfred John Cholmley, of Place Newton, Rillington, co. York, by his wife, Mary Anne, daughter of the Rev. Francis Simpson, of Foston, co. York; b. Place Newton, 1 Sept. 1882; educated Summerfield’s 1893-5, and Mann’s Preparatory School for Navy 1895-7; joined the Britannia, 1897, was appointed to the Barfleur, Rear-Admiral Penrose Fitzgerald’s flagship, on the China Station in Sept. 1898, and served through the China War, for which he received the medal; was on the Niobe from Dec. 1900, to May, 1902, and after passing through Greenwich, entered the submarine service in 1903. He was serving as Sub-Lieutenant with A 1 when she was sunk in 1904. On the day she was lost he had been sent to take temporary charge of another submarine, and was returning to A 1, about 4.30 p.m., when no trace of her could be found. After the A 1 was raised he was given six months’ promotion, being made Lieutenant and put in command of her; afterwards commanded B, C and D boats, and from Feb. 1907, to March, 1909, served on the Bedford on the China Station, and in July of the latter year was appointed to the command of Submarine C 27. On 31 March, 1912, he was promoted Lieutenant-Commander, and in May appointed to the Alecto for duty with submarines, and in 1913 received an expression of the Lords of the Admiralty’s high appreciation of the way in which he had handled his ship when towing H.M.S. Jackal into Dundee Harbour during a storm. He was given command of Submarine E 3 in June, 1914, and was killed in action in the Bight of Heligoland, 18 Oct. 1914. In Sept. he picked up a German seaplane which had been in the water for 20 hours about 30 miles off the Island of Borkum, and after destroying the remains of the seaplane he brought the officer and his mechanic as prisoners to Harwich. Lieutenant-Commander Cholmley married at St. Saviour’s Church, Mayfair, London, 9 Sept. 1911, Violet Penelope Munro (Hillcot, Shakespeare Road, Worthing), daughter of Robert James Trown Thomson, Indian P.W.D., by his wife, May Forbes, daughter of the Very Rev. Principal William Robinson Pirie, D.D., Aberdeen; s.p.