• Born: 26 September 1914, Carlton, Victoria, Australia
• Marriage (1): Jemima HAINING on 23 February 1946 in Moreland, Victoria, Australia
• Died: Abt 2000, Canada about age 86

  Birth Notes

Airedale Place, off High Street

  Recorded Events in His Life

• Parents: Thomas Tanner and Meta Phillipina Stark.

• He worked as a trimmer in 1939 on a ship in the South Atlantic Ocean.
  
  Tom worked as a trimmer on board the Tairoa in November 1939.
  • What does a trimmer do on a ship? Trimmers used shovels and wheelbarrows to move coal around the bunkers in order to keep the coal level, and to shovel the coal down the coal chute to the firemen below, who shoveled it into the furnaces. If too much coal built up on one side of a coal bunker, the ship would actually list to that side.
  
  HMAS Tairoa & the GRAF SPEE
  3 Dec 1939 • Location: South Atlantic, 648 miles southeast of Saint Helena Island.
  Tom was on board the Tairoa when she was sunk by the Graf Spee in 1939. He survived ...see weblinks below for the full story
  
  Battle of the River Plate, Uruguay
  13 Dec 1939
  After sinking the Tairoa, the Graf Spee continued on to the River Plate estuary, Uruguay.
  
  
  Web Links
  Battle of the River Plate 1939
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_River_Plate
  
  Google Search
  http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/2lodesign/franktiaroa.htm
  
  Sinking of Tairoa WWII
  https://www.maritimequest.com/freighters/02_pages/t/tairoa_1920_page_3.htm
  
  News Paper Interview
  https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/46935970
  
  [occupation, story and links courtesy of Kaye Ashton]

Henry married Jemima HAINING, daughter of Thomas Goldie HAINING and Mary Agnes HYSLOP, on 23 February 1946 in Moreland, Victoria, Australia. (Jemima HAINING was born on 9 September 1916 in Donibristle, Aberdour, Fifeshire, Scotland, died on 16 February 1965 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and was cremated on 19 February 1965 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.)

  Marriage Notes

#3120 .. at St Augustines, Sydney Road, Moreland - just south of The Avenue. Matron of Honour - Rose Stella Brown nee Amphlett & Best Man - Alfred Hilton Brown (sister and brother-in-law of the groom).