The ring was found by Peter Brady, one of a group of divers from Liverpool who were diving last year in South Ronaldsay's Windwick Bay.
Exploring the wreck of HMS Opal, an RN destroyer wrecked on rocks in bad weather in 1918, Brady came across the ring, which carried a hallmark and was clearly inscribed: 'To Stanley, from Flo, March 1916.'
Research by another dive-group member, Bob Hamilton, and his wife Sue, established that the ring had been given to lost crew-member Stanley Cubiss by a woman named Florence. They had married in 1917, a year before his death in the sinking.
The Hamiltons managed to track down Cubiss's nephew Malcolm Cubiss, 79, a retired brigadier living near York. Presented with the ring, he was reportedly thrilled but, on reflection, felt that it should go on display at the Lyness Interpretation Centre on Orkney's Hoy Island, dedicated to recording the history of Scapa Flow during the two World Wars.
Cubiss also supplied pictures of Stanley and Florence Cubiss, and war medals. Florence died in 1971, aged 82.
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