Hi Harland,
Very many thanks for posting the above and starting this thread.
The Stone and Stewart press reports are very important as they correct a number of incorrect details in Reade's 'The Ship That Stood Still' and Paul Lee's book 'The Titanic and the Indifferent Stranger'.
Let's deal with Stewart first. His name is on the Merchant Navy Memorial at Tower Hill, London. The whole Barnhill bombing story is remembered on Hastings beach, and the ship's boilers can be seen at low tide. Captain Michael O'Neil was only rescued because he pulled the ships bell's rope with his teeth to sound the bell, and the Eastbourne lifeboat rescued the survivors from the fiercely burning ship.
Reade stated Stewart was unemployed so got a job as third officer on the Barnhill. This was quite untrue. Stewart had a very comfortable home in a very nice part of Sale, Cheshire, that is now a suburb of Manchester. Barwell Road is a very affluent part of Sale. He was retired. He volunteered to serve on his friend's ship to help out with the war effort.
That he should have been killed in such tragic circumstances below decks, is a twist of fate.
That Stewart should have come out of retirement at the age of 62 to help an old friend, and help out with the war effort in WW2 speaks to me volumes of the character of Stewart and a form of patriotism that in the UK some of us can relate to, and honour his subsequent sacrifice in the most awful of circumstances early on in WW2.
As for Stone, Reade states Stone left the sea in 1933! How wrong he was! Clearly Stones' family did not provide Reade with the 'scoop' he thought he had when concluding his book. One must then question the accuracy of everything else Stone's son told Reade or stated in a letter.
Paul Lee contacted the family apparently, and at least was told about the 1937 disappearance - though was told Herbert Stone was found at a Devonshire dockyard. As the Press Reports make clear, he was found at Portsmouth in Hampshire! It also clearly resulted in a national appeal in the newspapers for this 'missing person'.
The 'Wayfarer' had returned from a voyage to Calcutta, India. I am not aware of some illness that one might catch in Calcutta that would cause someone to have a memory loss for 9 days on getting back to Tilbury, London. Note that the 'Wayfarer' then steamed from Tilbury to Liverpool, Stone having by then gone AWOL. Stone's home was in Liverpool. Why, if he was physically ill, he should disappear in London and end up in Portsmouth 8 days later hanging around the docks and a day later being questioned by the police still hanging around the docks in Portsmouth, is quite fascinating!
Clearly Stone was hanging around one of the Royal Navy dock gates in Portsmouth, which aroused the suspicion of the local constabulary.
So, Stone's son John, completely misled Leslie Reade, and the whole basis of Reade's conclusions must now be re-visited or simply thrown aside. (I had already posted on here on another thread that I never accepted Reade's pseudo 'father son' relationship between Captain Lord and Stone)
Although Paul Lee was told about some of the disappearance of Stone via Stone's grandson, he failed to join the dots together in respect of Reade's book.
Cheers,
Julian