These details may be those of the same William C Barlow who went to Westoe Secondary School, but there is no direct evidence other than a match in the military records on a relatively common or incomplete name.

William Barlow was born Charles William Barlow, son of George, a coal trimmer with North Eastern Railway, and Dorothy Jane Barlow.

He joined the Mercantile Marine, and served on board SS Arca, a steam tanker built only a few years earlier, in 1912, by Palmer's Shipbuilding on the Tyne.

The ship was defensively-armed, and on 2-Oct-1918 was sailing some 40 miles off the north-west coast of Ireland when she was struck and sunk by a torpedo from the German U-board, U-118.

52 lives were lost, including second mate, William Barlow.

He is remembered in the Tower Hill Memorial, north London.