Chief Engine Room Artificer, Duncan Barber Bennett, Royal Navy

Duncan Barber Bennett was a Freemason and member of Lodge Temperance 2557 who served in the 2^nd World War. A letter to the Provincial Grand Secretary of Northumberland from WBro John Sowerby, Secretary, dated 7th November 1947 attached a list of the names and service of forty three Brethren and Brother Duncan is listed in the Royal Navy.

At the Lodge Temperance 2557 meeting held at the Royal Assembly Rooms, Westgate Road, on 18^th August 1941 Duncan was proposed by Bro William C. Dixon and seconded by Bro James Dixon as a fit and proper person to be made a Freemason.

He was a 35 year old engine room Artificer with the Royal Navy residing at North View, Blaydon.  A successful ballot was held on 15th September 1941 but his initiation was delayed, most likely due to war duties, and he was proposed again by Bro William C. Dixon and seconded by Bro James Dixon a year later on 21^st September 1942. On this occasion he was residing at 198 Helmsley Road, Sandyford, Newcastle upon Tyne. A successful ballot was held the following month on 19^th October 1942 but his initiation was again delayed and a re-ballot was taken on 17^th December 1945. He was eventually initiated into the mysteries and privileges of Ancient Freemasonry on 21^st January 1946. At the meeting on the 20^th May 1946 the secretary read out a letter from Comrades Lodge 4745, Portsmouth that they had passed Bro Duncan to the second or Fellowcraft degree on the 18^th March 1946 and raised him to the Sublime degree of a Master Mason on 15^th April 1946. Comrades Lodge 4745, consecrated in 1925, still meets on the 2^nd Wednesday of the month October – June in Cosham, Portsmouth.

On at least two occasions, Bro Duncan was awarded a Royal Navy Long Service and Good Conduct Medal where he is shown as a Chief Engine Room Artificer on HMS Victory, although it’s unclear if this is a ship or shore based.

Engine Room Artificers and Electrical Artificers were some of the most highly skilled and well-paid enlisted men in the Navy. They were selected upon entering the service to receive several years of training ashore in the naval dockyards before being assigned to vessels. Chief Engine Room Artificers ranked above most other chief petty officers and wore three buttons on the cuffs, similar to warrant officers. Besides running machinery and being in charge of the running and maintenance of that machinery they would have been expected to manufacture replacement parts that were not available to keep the ship operational. Very skilled indeed!

Bro Duncan was born on 20^th September 1906 in Winlaton, Co. Durham to Thomas William and Helen Skene Barber. Duncan’s father Thomas was a bottle blower and bottle maker also from Winlaton and married Helen Skene Barber, a Scottish lass from Leith, in Gateshead in 1898. They had seven children:

Thomas b 1899
Frederick Alexander b 1900
Agnes May b 1902
John b 1904
Duncan Barber b 1906
Jane b 1908
Joseph b 1911

Duncan married Elsie Carr, a domestic servant from Newcastle, in Newcastle in early 1941 and they settled in Helmsley Road, Sandyford, Newcastle upon Tyne with Elsie’s family. They had one child, a daughter, Elizabeth Bennet born in 1942. Duncan died in sheltered housing in 1983 at the age of 76.