Francis William ‘Frank’ Lancaster was born in Hackney, Middlesex, England, on the 28th September 1866, the fourth son of William Locke and Ann Elizabeth Lancaster (née Le Cronier). The family home was at 'Little Gidding', 1, Gunnersbury Avenue, Ealing Common, Middlesex, England. He was unmarried, and one of eleven children. His father was an insurance broker.
He had made his fortune in the rubber plantations of Ceylon, and in 1914, had retired from the active business world and decided to take a holiday in Canada. Consequently, he spent a year in Toronto, Ontario, and in the spring of 1915, he decided to return home to Middlesex and also pay a visit to his brother, Dr. Le Cronier Lancaster, who was a general practitioner in Northampton Place, Swansea, Glamorgan, South Wales. Thus he booked second cabin passage on the Lusitania and joined her by rail from Toronto, in time for her
day on 1st May 1915.
Unfortunately, when the ship was torpedoed and sunk on the afternoon of 7th May by the German submarine U-20, six days out of New York and only hours away from her Liverpool destination, Frank Lancaster was one of the many who were killed! He was aged 48 years.
His body was one of the first to be recovered from the sea, however, and it was initially given the reference number 12, in one of the temporary mortuaries set up in Queenstown, probably in the yard of the Cunard building at Lynch’s Quay, before being formally identified by his brother Percy Locke Lancaster, from a photograph. As it was necessary to bury all the recovered bodies as soon as was practicable, they were all photographed in their temporary mortuaries before being buried. Anxious relatives of those missing were then invited to identify their loved ones through these photographs.
Frank Lancaster’s body was at first identified erroneously by another grieving relative as that of saloon passenger Guy Lewin, so Cunard sent his brother, Percy Lancaster, wax impressions of a signet ring - which had a lion’s head crest on it - and a gold matchbox with another lion‘s head on it, both of which had been taken from the body of No. 12. He was then able to confirm his earlier identification. The body of Guy Lewin was never recovered and identified.
On 10th May 1915, Frank Lancaster’s body was buried in The Old Church Cemetery, Queenstown, in Mass Grave A, 3rd Row, Lower Tier. This was the date that most of the victims of the sinking were buried, following a long funeral procession which started at Lynch's Quay, outside the Cunard offices, on the waterfront.
He is commemorated on a white marble memorial tablet enclosed by a concrete frame, mounted on the cemetery wall just in front of Mass Grave A, where he is buried. The inscription states: -
SACRED
TO THE MEMORY OF
FRANCIS WILLIAM LANCASTER
4 TH SON OF
WILLIAM LOCKE LANCASTER
WHO LOST HIS LIFE IN THE
"LUSITANIA" DISASTER
7. MAY 1915, AGED 48 YEARS.
Letters of Administration were granted at London on 30th July 1915, to his brother, Percy Locke Lancaster, a merchant, who lived at the family home and his effects amounted to £871-19s-7d, (£871.98p).
The above mentioned property recovered from his body, was given to the family solicitor, Mr. E.C. Fache of 13, John Street, Bedford Road, London W.C., on 4th September 1915, for forwarding to his family. It consisted of one $10 bill, 9 $5 bills, three half sovereigns, 21 shillings in British silver coin, some British copper coinage, a silver keyless watch with an open face, numbered 107291 and labelled BENSON, LONDON, a gold Morden pencil, a 14 carat curb chain, a badge, a gold seal with an incised bird and the Latin motto TUTA TENEBO on it, a 9 carat gold match box, a gold signet ring, a pair of gold plated cuff links, and a pipe and tobacco pouch.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, London England Church of England Births and Baptisms 1813 – 1917, 1871 Census of England & Wales, 1891 Census of England & Wales, New York Passenger Lists 1820 – 1957, Cunard Records, South Wales Daily Post, Probate Records, PRO BT 100/345, UniLiv.D92/1/8-10, UniLiv D92/2/316, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.