ABLE SEAMAN HERBERT CHARLES ASHTON 1997 RAN
Herbert Ashton was born in Ararat Victoria in November 1896, and he enlisted in the RAN as a Boy on HMAS Tingira in August 1912. He was the son of John and Mary Ashton, and he had three bothers and two sisters. He was promoted to Boy 1st Class in July 1913 and posted to the Battle Cruiser HMAS Australia in October 1913. Herbert was advanced to Ordinary Seaman 2nd Class on his 17th birthday, however he deserted from Australia in March 1914.
In January 1915, Herbert availed himself of an amnesty granted to deserters and turned himself in at HMAS Cerberus and five weeks later was advanced to Ordinary Seaman 1st Class. On the 1stof July he was advanced to Able Seaman and posted to the Protected Cruiser HMAS Psyche, serving on the ship for over two years. In early 1918 he travelled to the UK to join HMAS Australia, returning to Sydney on the ship in mid-1919. Herbert spent most of 1920 serving in the Submarine Depot Ship HMAS Platypus before transferring to the Royal Australian Fleet Reserve in December 1920.
A reason that Herbert requested to transfer to the reserve was probably because he married Mabel Turner in Victoria in 1920. The couple would have three sons in a marriage spanning 57 years until Mabel’s death in 1977.
On leaving the Navy, Herbert became a warder in the Prison Service, whilst also undertaking annual periods of reserve time, an invaluable source of additional income for his young family in a period covering the Great Depression. He discharged from the Fleet Reserve in 1935. Later in life he took work at the Beechworth Mental asylum as an Attendant, before moving to Melbourne in the 1950s as a male nurse.
Herbert Ashton passed away in Melbourne on the 15th of January 1982. His body was cremated and his ashes in the Fawkner Memorial Park in Melbourne in the 2nd Avenue New Rosebeds, Garden Bed A, position 397A.
