LEADING SIGNALMAN DAILSEY, of Milton, and his wife, to whom he was married just over a year ago. Mrs. Daisley was at Chatham at the time of the disaster. She heard the explsosion, and saw the smoke cloud overhanging the place where the Princess Irene had been.

Milton village is mourning the loss of Leading Signalman Alexander William Arthur Daisley, son the late Mr. Wm. Daisley and Mrs. Judith Hawley, landlady of the White Horse Hotel, Milton, who was killed in the Princess Irene explosion at Sheerness.

Leading Signalman Daisley, who was 28 years of age, and who had resided recently at 71, Cressy-road, Portsmouth, had had twelve years in the service, beginning as a Greenwich schoolboy. His father had served as a Marine. Since the outbreak of the war he had taken part in risky work, and ten weeks ago he was attached to the Princess Irene. About fortnight ago obtained four days’ leave and visited Milton. He returned Sheerness with his wife. He had been married just over a year. Daisley went aboard the Irene and his wife stayed with her uncle at Alma-road, Sheerness.

Whilst in the garden of the house there she heard a terrible explosion. Somebody said: “That sounds like the Bulwark,” and she ran with others along the pier. All that could be seen was mighty bank of smoke overhanging the place where the Princess Irene had lain. The cloudbank remained for over quarter of an hour. When the fact of the dreadful disaster was realised, Mrs. Daisley said, the scene on the pier was too distressing for words. The Princess Irene, she said, was a beautiful, well-fitted-up vessel, and in the words of her husband, “too good to last.” Signalman Daisley had been about a week aboard when the catastrophe occurred. Mrs. Daisley, who comes from a service family, also lost cousin in the disaster.

A brother Signalman Lionel J. E. Daisley, is now serving in the Dardanelles.