Albert Lloyd Hopkins was born in Glen Falls, Warren County, New York, in the United States of America, on the 7th September 1871, the son of Stephen DeForest and Elizabeth Goodwin Hopkins (née Sheldon).
He was educated at Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute at Troy, New York, where he studied civil engineering and graduated with honours in 1892. His first job was with a firm of architects in Chicago, Illinois, before he secured a position with the Bureau of Construction and Repair, Navy Department, in Washington D.C.. Then, in February 1894, he was assigned to duty at the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company, as one of the staff for the supervising constructor.
In the summer of 1897, he was transferred to the graduate school of naval architecture at the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland. He was there in April 1898 when the Spanish-American War broke out, and was assigned to the Naval Station at Key West, Florida, where he was in charge of all the naval construction work undertaken there.
In August 1898, he was appointed as the personal assistant to W.A. Post, who was then the general superintendent of the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company. In 1907, W.A. Post was appointed general manager of the company, and he, in turn, appointed Albert Hopkins to be his assistant general manager.
On the 28th June 1906, he married Florida May Davies, who came from Chase City, Virginia, and in 1908, their only child, a daughter named May Davis Hopkins was born. In 1915, they lived at 270, Riverside Drive, New York, N.Y..
In 1911, when W.A. Post became president of the company, Albert Hopkins succeeded him as general manager, however, his meteoric rise up the company ladder wasn’t over yet, because when Mr. Post died in February 1912, the board of directors elected Albert as vice-president of the company, and then, I March 1914, appointed him as the company president.
In the spring of 1915, Albert Hopkins embarked upon a business trip to England in company with two friends, Mr. Fred Gauntlet, a Washington businessman, and Mr. Samuel M. Knox, who was president of the New York Shipbuilding Company. Their business was with the British Admiralty, and one source states that this was connected with the negotiation of a patent for the design of a submarine, and another states that it was to discuss contracts for the manufacture of armour plate for warships.
Having booked saloon passage (with ticket number 46090), Albert Hopkins joined the liner at Pier 54 in New York harbour on the morning of 1st May. Once on board, he was allocated room B30, which he shared with his friend Fred Gauntlet, and this room was the personal responsibility of First Class Bedroom Steward James Grant, who came from Liverpool.
The liner’s departure for Liverpool was actually delayed until the early afternoon, so that she could take on board passengers, cargo and crew from the Anchor Liner
Cameronia, which had been requisitioned by the British Admiralty for war work as a troop ship at the end of April. Then, six days later, on the afternoon of 7th May, the
Lusitania was torpedoed twelve miles off the coast of southern Ireland by the German submarine
U-20, and sank just eighteen minutes later. At that stage of her voyage, she was only 250 miles from the safety of her home port.
Albert Hopkins was killed as a result of this action, although both Fred Gauntlet and Samuel Knox survived. He was aged 43 years at the time of his death.
Once it had been established that Hopkins was dead, his friend Gauntlet put up a reward of £50 for the recovery of his body and on Friday 14th May, it was recovered from the sea by an Admiralty tug, which was steaming in the area at the time. The £50, which had been handed over to Wesley Frost, the United States Consul at Queenstown, was later given to Admiralty officials to be distributed amongst the crew, should the Lords of The Admiralty decide to sanction it! It is not known if they ever did.
Albert Hopkins’ body was then landed at Queenstown and taken to one of the temporary mortuaries there, where it was given the reference number 194, although by this time, its identity had already been established - probably from documents recovered from it.
After this, in keeping with the corpses of all saloon passengers, it was embalmed and on the instructions of the United States Consul at Queenstown, Mr. Wesley Frost, it was shipped to New York for burial, on board the S.S.
Philadelphia, on 26th May 1915. It arrived back in that city on 3rd June, just over a month after Albert Hopkins had left there and was delivered to a Mr. James Plummer at 233, Broadway, who presumably took charge of the body for burial. The property recovered from Albert Hopkins’ body had already been handed to Mr. Frost at Queenstown for repatriation to his family, on 15th May 1915.
Albert Hopkins was not the only member of his family to die that fateful May. On Wednesday 6th May he had received a cable from home which told him that his father had died peacefully, after a day of unconsciousness! Both father and son were buried in Glen Falls Cemetery, Glen Falls, New York State.
Bedroom Steward Grant who had looked after Albert Hopkins and Fred Gauntlet in room B30 survived the sinking and eventually made it back to his Liverpool home. Fred Gauntlet then returned to New York on the S.S.
Philadelphia on 26th May, with the body of Albert Hopkins in one of the ship’s holds!
Over a year after the sinking, Albert Hopkins’ widow May received a $10,000 life insurance pay out on a policy taken out by her late husband, after a protracted court battle!
In 1920, May Davies Hopkins married Lieutenant-Colonel Ellison Lindsey Gilmer of the United States Coast Artillery Corps.
On 21st February 1924, Edwin B. Parker, the Umpire for the Mixed Claims Commission awarded May Davies Hopkins Gilmer, the sum of $50,000.00 for the loss of her first husband. He also awarded his daughter, May Davies Hopkins the sum of $80,000.00.
Virginia Select Marriages 1785 – 1940, 1875 New York State Census, 1880 U.S. Federal Census, 1910 U.S. Federal Census, U.S. Passport Applications 1795 – 1925, Cunard Records, Mixed Claims Commission Docket No. 4, Cork Examiner New York Times, Seven Days to Disaster, Last Voyage of the Lusitania, PRO 22/71, PRO BT 100/345, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.