Charles Fryatt

Fryatt was born on 2 December 1872 in Southampton, the son of Charles and Mary Fryatt. He attended Freemantle School during the late 1870s. In 1881, Fryatt's family lived at 22 Trinity Terrace, in St Mary's, Southampton, but later relocated to Harwich, Essex where he attended the Corporation School. He and his wife, Ethel Fryatt, The children were Olive, Victoria, Doris, Vera, Mabel, Charles and Dorothy. The younger Charles later followed his father into the merchant navy, training at HMS Worcester. After ending school, Fryatt joined the Mercantile Marine, serving on SS County Antrim, SS Ellenbank, SS Marmion and SS Harrogate. In 1892, Fryatt joined the Great Eastern Railway as a seaman on . Fryatt's father had been the First Officer on . Fryatt was promoted through the ranks, serving on various ships. His first command was . In 1913, he was appointed master of . ==U-boat attack==

On 3 March 1915, Fryatt's command, , a Great Central Railway ship, was attacked by a German U-boat. The ship was chased for . With deckhands assisting the stokers, the vessel made when it would normally have been difficult to make . Wrexham arrived at Rotterdam with burnt funnels. The Great Eastern Railway presented Fryatt with a gold watch for this feat. The watch was inscribed Presented to Captain C. A. Fryatt by the chairman and Directors of the G.E Railway Company as a mark of their appreciation of his courage and skilful seamanship on 2 March 1915. Later that month he was in charge of Colchester when she was attacked unsuccessfully by a U-boat. On 28 March 1915, as captain of the , he was ordered to stop by when his ship was near the Maas lightvessel. Seeing the U-boat had surfaced to torpedo his ship, Fryatt ordered full steam ahead and tried to ram U-33, which crash-dived. For this second action, Fryatt was awarded a gold watch by the Admiralty. ==Capture==

On 23 June 1916 Brussels left Hook of Holland bound for Harwich. Lights were shown from the beach and a flare was fired. A passenger is reported to have remained on deck and signalled to shore. Five German destroyers surrounded Brussels. The passengers were told to prepare to take to the lifeboats and the ship's official papers were destroyed. Brussels was then captured by the Germans, the radio was destroyed, and it was escorted into Zeebrugge and then to Bruges. ==Court-martial==

Fryatt and his crew were sent to the civilian internment camp at Ruhleben, near Berlin. On 16 July 1916, the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf reported that Fryatt had been charged with sinking a German submarine. In reality, U-33 had not been sunk; at the time of the trial it was on active service as part of the Constantinople Flotilla. The basis for the charge was the inscription on his gold watch from the Admiralty. Fryatt was tried at a court-martial by the Imperial German Navy on 27 July 1916,) and his wife. An execution notice was published in Dutch, French and German announcing the death of Fryatt. It was signed by Admiral Ludwig von Schröder. A translation of the execution notice reads: German post-war confirmation of court-martial On 2 April 1919, a German international law commission, named the "Schücking Commission" for its chairman Walther Schücking, reconfirmed Fryatt's sentence: The execution by firing squad of Captain Charles Fryatt, ordered by the Court Martial of Bruges following judgment in the court-martial proceedings of 27 July 1916, involves no violation of international law. [However, t]he Commission regrets most deeply the haste with which the sentence was carried out. The commission's ruling was not unanimous. Two members of the legal review panel, Eduard Bernstein and Oskar Cohn, dissented because in their opinion Fryatt's conviction and execution had been "a serious violation of international law" and "an inexcusable judicial murder". ==Reaction==

On 31 July 1916, British Prime Minister H. H. Asquith issued a statement in the House of Commons. Lord Claud Hamilton, MP, Chairman of the Great Eastern Railway, denounced the execution as "sheer, brutal murder". The Mayor of Harwich opened a fund to erect a permanent memorial to Fryatt. A similar fund was opened in the Netherlands. In the United States, The New York Times denounced the execution as "a deliberate murder". The New York Herald termed it "The crowning German atrocity". In the Netherlands, the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant described the execution as "arbitrary and unjust", while the Handelsblad Holland termed it "A cowardly murder inspired by hatred and revenge". In Switzerland, the Journal de Genève said "It is monstrous to maintain that armed forces have a right to murder civilians but that civilians are guilty of a crime in defending themselves". The Dutch branch of the League of Neutral States presented the Great Eastern Railway a memorial tablet which was erected at Liverpool Street station. The memorial was unveiled on 27 July 1917, exactly a year after Fryatt's execution. The scrap value of Brussels was donated towards the cost. The script was reportedly based on British admiralty naval reports. ==Funeral and reburial==

In July 1919, Fryatt's body was exhumed from the small cemetery near Bruges and returned to the United Kingdom for burial. His coffin was landed at Dover, and transported in South Eastern and Chatham Railway PMV No.132 to London. On 8 July 1919, his funeral service was held at St Paul's Cathedral. Hundreds of merchant seamen and widows of merchant seamen and fishermen attended. Representing the Government were many members of the Admiralty, the Board of Trade, the Cabinet and the War Office. The band of the Great Eastern Railway, augmented by drummers from the Royal Marines, played the "Dead March". "Eternal Father, Strong to Save" and "Abide with Me" were sung, and a blessing given by the Bishop of London. The route of the coffin to Liverpool Street station was lined with people. His widow was presented with the insignia of the Belgian Order of Leopold that had been posthumously awarded to Fryatt. Fryatt was also posthumously awarded the Belgian Maritime War Cross. In November 2018, Fryatt's grave was restored after years of neglect. ==Namesakes==

, Essex. In Zeebrugge there is a street named after Captain Fryatt – Kapitein Fryattstraat. A wing at Dovercourt Cottage Hospital – which is now known as the Captain Fryatt Memorial Hospital. – was named in Fryatt's honour. A public house in nearby Parkeston is also named in Captain Fryatt's honour. In Canada, the high Mount Fryatt () was named in 1921 in honour of Captain Fryatt. The high Brussels Peak () was named in honour of his ship. ==Commemoration==

In 2016, an exhibition was held from 23 to 31 July at the Masonic Hall, Harwich, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of his execution. The local cottage hospital became known as the Harwich and District, Fryatt Memorial Hospital from about 1925. In 2019, the modern Harwich Hospital was renamed in his honour as the Fryatt Memorial Hospital. ==See also==