Alice Eliza Hopkins was born in Kenilworth, Warwickshire, England, in 1884, the daughter of Henry and Sarah Ann Hopkins (née Foster). The family home was at 17, Henry Street, Kenilworth, and her father was a gardener by occupation. She was one of six children – four girls and two boys.
Alice was unmarried, and in 1909, she went to live and work as a domestic servant in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States of America, and after a visit home to Kenilworth in 1912, she invited her sister, Katie, back with her to America to work in a similar capacity for the same family. They must have left their employment in Philadelphia, for by 1915, they were living and working in Boston, Massachusetts.
In early 1915, another Hopkins daughter, Annie, decided to get married to a soldier in the Royal Engineers, Company Quartermaster-Sergeant R.C. Snelling, and they set the date for the wedding as 7th May 1915. Alice and Kate Hopkins decided to return to Warwickshire to attend it, but cabled home to ask that it might be postponed until 8th May, when they hoped they could be present. They followed this up with a letter written by Alice, which said: -
Boston 16th April. After your letter of this week Katie and I propose to sail from New York per the s.s.
(sic) Lusitania on May 1st. With good luck we shall be in Liverpool on the 8th May.
As a result, they both booked second cabin passage on the May sailing of the
Lusitania from New York to Liverpool, and having left Boston some time at the end of April, they arrived at the Cunard berth at Pier 54 in New York on the morning of 1st May 1915 in time for the liner’s scheduled 10 o’clock departure. The liner’s departure for Liverpool was then 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. Both Alice Hopkins and her sister were killed as a result of this action. Alice Hopkins was aged 30 years.
Another second cabin passenger, Mr. Arthur Gadsden, had befriended the sisters on the passage across the Atlantic and later described how, before the ship sank, he helped them both into life belts, but clearly despite his efforts, this did not help to save them.
The wedding of Miss Hopkins and C.Q.M.S. Snelling went ahead despite the tragedy and part of their honeymoon was spent in Queenstown, where the newlyweds toured the temporary mortuaries searching for the bodies of the lost sisters.
The gruesome search proved fruitless, however, and they returned to Kenilworth on Wednesday 12th May. Alice Hopkins' body
was recovered from the sea, however, over a week after the sinking and it was placed in one of the Queenstown mortuaries and given the identification number 187, pending a positive identification. It was described there as: -
Female 24 years 5’ 4” flat nose, slight build, small face black heavy tweed coat with large black buttons and tweed skirt, had handkerchief marked C. Willis.
Property. Lady’s gold watch initials E.J.C. or K.H. long gold thin chain, gold bracelet, gold ring with initials A.F.C. or A.H.. Lusitania brooch and appendage with light gold chain round neck, 1 gold ring, 2 stones.
Obviously the initials inscribed in the jewellery were in monogram or stylised form and were both
A.H..
It was eventually identified, however, possible from the property found on it, or maybe from a photograph taken of it. As it was necessary to bury all the recovered bodies as soon as possible, because they could not be hygienically stored in the increasing heat of May, they were all photographed in the temporary mortuaries in Queenstown before being buried as soon as was practicable. Anxious friends and relatives of those missing were then invited to identify their loved ones through these photographs.
Either way, it was buried on 17th May 1915, in The Old Church Cemetery, Queenstown, in Mass Grave B, 4th Row, Lower Tier, where it lies today. Her sister's body had been buried there in Mass Grave C, one week earlier.
The property found on Alice Hopkins' body was forwarded to her father at the Kenilworth address on 31st July 1915. One can only imagine how the family was able to cope with this double tragedy!
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, Warwickshire England Church of England Baptisms 1813 – 1910, 1891 Census of England & Wales, 1901 Census of England & Wales, New York Passenger Lists 1820 – 1957, Cunard Records, Kenilworth Advertiser, Probate Records, PRO BT 100/345, UniLiv.D92/1/8-11, UniLiv.D92/1/6, UniLiv D92/2/262, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.