Frederick Elliott was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England, in the summer of 1871, the son of Frederick and Ellen Elliott (née Ahern). His parents were born in Queenstown, now named Cobh, County Cork, Ireland, and his father was an able seaman in the Royal Navy.
In 1874, his mother died, and his father remarried less than three months later, his second wife being named Maria Carroll. Frederick had at least three siblings from his parents’ marriage and a further three half-siblings from his father’s second marriage.
His father returned to Queenstown with his family sometime after he retired from the Royal Navy in 1879 and became a member of the local coastguard. The family resided at Queen Street, Queenstown.
Following in his father’s footsteps, Frederick also went to sea, becoming an able seaman in the British Mercantile Marine and moved to Liverpool, Lancashire, where he found work on steam ships operating out of the port. According to his Seaman’s Registration Cards, Frederick Elliott stated that he was born in the 3rd October 1874; however, as his birth was recorded in the third quarter of 1871, this is erroneous.
On the 29th April 1906, he married Annie Reilly in Liverpool, and the couple had no children. By 1911, they were living at 39. Lemon Street, Kirkdale, Liverpool, their home for the rest of his life.
In April 1915, Frederick Elliott joined the Lusitania at Liverpool as an able seaman in the Deck Department. His pay was £5-10s.-0d. (£5.50p) per month and he reported for duty on the morning of the 17th April, when the Lusitania departed on her 201st trans-Atlantic crossing.
Having safely arrived in New York on the 24th April, Frederick Elliott was still serving on board the liner when she departed on her return voyage to Liverpool on the 1st May. Then, six days later, on the afternoon of the 7th May, the Lusitania was torpedoed by the German submarine, U-20, while she was steaming off the southern coast of Ireland and sank within eighteen minutes.
Frederick Elliott survived the sinking and having been rescued from the sea, he was safely landed in Queenstown, a town he knew so well from his childhood. His father had died in 1903, and his stepmother had returned to Portsmouth to live with one of her married daughters, therefore it is not known if he had any family still living there by this time.
He returned to his wife in Liverpool some days after his survival and continued to work as a seaman for the remainder of his life.
Frederick Elliott died in Liverpool in late August 1925, aged 54 years. He was buried in Ford Cemetery, Liverpool, on the 29th August 1925, in Common Grave 97.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, Liverpool England Catholic Marriages 1754 – 1933, Liverpool England Catholic Burials
1813 – 1985, 1901 Census of Ireland, 1911 Census of England, 1921 Census of England, Liverpool England Crew Lists 1861 – 1919, New York Passenger Lists 1820 – 1957, Cunard Records, PRO BT 349, PRO BT 350, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.
Revised & Updated – 1st May 2023.