Hartlepool prepares to mark the 110th anniversary of devastating Bombardment

The community will once again come together on the Headland to pay tribute to those who lost their lives in the surprise German attack on the town just after 8am on December 16 in 1914.

This year’s commemoration, organised annually by the Heugh Battery Museum, will be attended by ten-year-old Maisie Maddison, the great-great niece of Eleanor Necy, who was the youngest person killed in the Bombardment at only six months old.

Her six-year-old sister, Annie, survived the attack.

The names of all the children and service personnel who died that day will be read out in the ceremony in Redheugh Gardens on Monday, December 16, and crosses planted in their names.

Heugh Battery Museum manager Diane Stephens said holding the commemoration on the exact date and time of the Bombardment each year serves to remind us of the people caught up in an extraordinary event.

She said: "The Maddisons are not the only family to have links to the Bombardment, and who appreciate the commemoration we hold every year.

"This is why, even 110 years after the event, we feel it is so important to publicly remember the townsfolk of the Hartlepools affected by this event.”

The Heugh Battery Museum will be open from 7.30am and the commemoration lasts from 8am to 8.30am with a gun salute and minute’s silence at 8.10am, the time the Bombardment started.

This year, the museum is also teaming up with Headland Baptist Church to show the recently premiered documentary The Baby Killers, about the bombardment of Scarborough, Whitby and Hartlepool.

It will be screened in the church at 9.30am after the commemoration and be followed by a Q&A and talk by historian Dr Michael Reeve.

He will speak about the damage done to the Baptist Church itself and the efforts of the local congregation and others to raise money to rebuild it.

Tickets for the film and talk are £10, available online from TicketSource or in person at the museum during opening hours.

There will be a second showing of the film without the Q&A at 1.30pm. Tickets are £5.