History of Kilburn and West Hampstead

Alfred George Stapleton was born in 1899 in Finchley. During the First World War he signed up as a boy sailor in April 1915 and began at the training ship HMS Arethusa on the river Thames. He then joined Admiral Beatty’s battle cruiser HMS Princess Royal in May 1916.  Alfred quickly found himself in the middle of the conflict when he was on the bridge of Beatty’s flagship at the Battle of Jutland on 31 May to 1 June 1916. This was the largest naval battle of the War when the British Home Fleet took on the German High Seas Fleet off the north coast of Denmark’s Jutland peninsula. The plan was to intercept a sortie by the German Fleet into the North Sea. With help of a captured code book, the British had decoded the German radio messages and left their bases before the Germans put to sea. The fleets engaged and Princess Royal was hit by two shells in the first three minutes. During the battle she received a total of nine hits and 22 men were killed and 81 injured.  The British ...