Background

John Victor Hatheway was born May 24, 1895 in Granville, Nova Scotia, to Frederick W. Hatheway and Christina Grace Bogart. According to records, Frederick and Christina married one another at the Church of Holy Trinity on Wednesday, June 6, 1883, in Granville Ferry, Nova Scotia. The Hatheway and Bogart families had strong ties to the Digby and Annapolis Valley area through the shipbuilding industry. Granville Ferry was one of these small shipbuilding communities on the Bay of Fundy. Spending his childhood between Granville Ferry and Saint John, Victor had six siblings named Samuel, Muriel, Harold, Beatrice, Leslie, and Charles. Charles passed away while the family was living in Saint John when he was only four months old. There are few details of his early life in Nova Scotia, but records show that on March 18, 1900, Victor’s mother, Christina, passed away leaving Frederick to raise the large family. She was only thirty-seven at the time of her death. Dealing with this tragedy the family moved to Fredericton and settled on a farm in the Springhill area of Kingsclear Parish. All the children in the family attended the Kingsclear St. Peters Church as well as local community schools. Over time, as his brothers moved away to other provinces for jobs working in the banking industry, Victor enrolled at Fredericton High School. Upon graduation in 1911 he went to the Halifax Royal Naval College where he later graduated and received a commission as a midshipman. By this time, Frederick had moved to Regent Street in Fredericton and later to 36 Waterloo Row with his sister as some of the family had moved away for work or for military service. Samuel continued working the family farm. Prior to the outbreak of war, at the age of eighteen, Victor was spending extended periods of time on the Atlantic Ocean aboard a British cruiser called the Berwick, sailing off the coast of Ireland and then on to Mexico. Newspapers report that while in Mexico on leave, he strayed too far in land and was shot in the arm by “rebel rifle fire.” He returned home for holiday in the early summer of 1914 and to celebrate his recent nineteenth birthday. His break, however, was cut short when war was declared in August. As Victor’s service began so early on in the war and because he served with the Royal British Navy, there are few details of his actual service. As a result, newspapers at the time provide the best available information on what happened to Victor, described as one of the most popular young men in Fredericton at the time. His brothers, Harold and Leslie also would enlist.        

Wartime Experience

Midshipman J. Victor W. Hatheway left for Halifax, Nova Scotia immediately at the outbreak of war after being recalled to a British cruiser called the Suffolk. Described as the “flagship of the British Atlantic Squadron” by newspapers, Victor along with three other young men from Nova Scotia who had also recently graduated from the Royal Naval College, joined the British crew. According to the Daily Gleaner, “like every good sailor and soldier, he was glad when the call to arms came, and he responded heartily.” During his time aboard the Suffolk, Victor wrote home as much as he could to connect with family and loved ones. At some point, the group of Canadian midshipmen was transferred in mid-ocean to the British cruiser, H.M.S. Good Hope, when it became the flagship for Admiral Cradock’s fleet that was heading to South America. The ship was one of four Drake-class armoured cruisers made for the Royal Navy in 1900, and at the outbreak of war it was tasked with searching for German commerce raiders in Central and South America. Eventually, the Good Hope made its way to the Southern Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Chile, where it encountered other German naval squadrons. On the late afternoon of November 1, 1914 during the Battle of Coronel, the Good Hope sustained repeated hits from German cruisers before it could return fire. All personnel on board perished in what was described at the time as one of the worst defeats of the Royal Navy in a century. Midshipman Victor Hatheway, and Nova Scotia boys J. W. Cann, Arthur Silver, and W. A. Palmer would all be lost at sea, the first official Canadian casualties of the First World War. News of Victor’s death reached Fredericton a few days later and newspapers began reporting that he had been lost at sea. On Sunday, November 15, 1914, citizens from across the Fredericton community gathered at Christ Church Cathedral to pay their respects to family and friends. Described at the time as “not only one of the most impressive services of the kind ever held at the historic edifice, but one of the greatest tributes Fredericton has ever paid to one of her sons,” the memorial service was praised for bringing the community together during a difficult period. In Halifax, the death of these young men prompted some of the earliest memorials for service personnel killed during the First World War, as plaques were placed in their honour in St. Mark’s Church, CFB Halifax, and later at the Royal Naval College of Canada. At the time of his death, Victor was approximately 19 years of age.           

Lest We Forget

Midshipman J. Victor W. Hatheway is memorialized on the Halifax Memorial, located in Halifax, Nova Scotia. According to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, the memorial is dedicated to the 274 individuals from the First Word War and 2,847 from the Second World War who have no known grave after being lost at sea. A majority of those on this memorial include sailors, merchant seamen, soldiers, and nursing sisters whose bodies have never been recovered.