Maginnis, Hugh

Ship’s Cook

SS Wileysike, Mercantile Marine

Died as a result of enemy action on Thursday 9 May 1918 (aged 38)

Buried:

Bangor Cemetery, Newtownards Road, Bangor, Co. Down (Grave 1B. 57)

Commemorated:

Commonwealth War Graves Commission

BIOGRAPHY

Hugh Maginnis served as Ship’s Cook aboard the SS Wileysike which was built in Newcastle in 1888.  SS Wileysike was a defensively armed merchant ship.

On 9 May 1918 when on route from Glasgow to France, the SS Wileysike was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-54 some eight miles South-West of St Ann’s Head, Pembrokeshire in Wales.

In the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) Debt of Honour Website it is recorded that Hugh Maginnis was a son of Hugh and Jane Maginnis and that he was born in Bangor.

Hugh Maginnis was in fact born on 4 October 1879 in Junction, Carrickfergus and he was a son of Hugh and Jane Maginnis (nee Francis) who were married on 15 April 1877 in First Bangor Presbyterian Church.  Hugh Maginnis, a widowed gardener from Ballykillaire was a son of Hugh Maginnis, a labourer.  Jane Francis from Bangor was a daughter of John Francis, a master mariner.