For more than 160 years, it has been a tradition of the Jollys of Mythop to send their sons away to sea, often at an early age. Members of the family have sailed under the “Red Duster” (Red Ensign) as officers in the Merchant Navy since the 1860s. There has also been service under the White Ensign (Royal Navy) and the Blue Ensign (running ammunition ships for the Admiralty in time of war). There have been midshipmen and junior officers in the Liverpool and Ribble Pilot Services, the Canadian Merchant Navy and at least one ancestor manned a lighthouse, the Penmon Light on Anglesey, during the nineteenth century. The pioneering of roll-on, roll-off (ro-ro) ferries in the 1950s is generally credited to a family member, John Jolly.
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The family lost two members, a father and son, in the Second World War – the first aboard an Atlantic convoy off the Scillies in 1943, the second as a result of service in the Admiralty Isles off Papua New Guinea in the Pacific War against Japan.
Inset: The Red
Ensign |
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In 2004, the Merchant Navy Association approved the award of two posthumous medals – the Merchant Naval Service Medal and the Hors de Combat Medal – to Captain William Shearson Jolly (1875-1943) whose wartime record is commemorated at St Andrew’s Church, Preston. Although no member of the current generation has seen active service, the family’s proud nautical tradition has been maintained through a
Governorship of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI). |
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