Life aboard the HMS Orbita, June 1915-October 1918)

Richard Lawlor was my great grandmother Mary Lawlor Doyle’s younger brother. He was from Rostoonstown, Tacumshane, Co. Wexford. He served in the Royal Naval Reserve. The first mention of him in official records occurs on 29 June 1915 when he left Devonport Barracks for Belfast via Liverpool to join the HMS Orbita, a mail boat of 15,000 tons. The Orbita was built by Harland and Wolff for the Pacific Steam Navigation Company, 1913-14, but before her maiden voyage she taken over by the Admiralty as an auxiliary cruiser. Richard Lawlor’s commission on board ‘Orbita’ lasted for three years and four months. He kept a diary of his time on board the ship, written in a copy book. I’ve a typed transcript of the diary, too. Richard’s brother-in-law, John Doyle served with him on the ‘Orbita’. After the war, Richard continued his seafaring life and while on a voyage between Montreal and Hamburg in the 1940s he died from injuries he received in an accident aboard ship and was buried at sea.