George Arthur Gilpin was born in Leeds, Yorkshire, England, on the 16th January 1868, the son of James and Eliza Mary Cawthorne Gilpin (née Shaw). His father was an iron fitter, and within a few years of his birth, his family had moved to Salford, Lancashire.
His father died in 1874, and George went to live with his maternal grandparents, William and Elizabeth Shaw, at 22, Museum Terrace, Leeds. He later studied in Manchester, Lancashire and was a brilliant scholar winning a Lancashire County Council Scholarship, prizes at Manchester Commercial School evening classes, an All-England bronze medal for Spanish and the Lord Derby Exhibition Scholarship.
Following these academic successes, in 1896, he went out to San Salvador, in El Salvador, to work for the London Bank of Central America and in 1901, he set up in business on his own, becoming agent there for Messrs. Lever Brothers of Port Sunlight, Birkenhead, Cheshire.
According to his brother, Mr. Walter Gilpin, of Clayton, Lancashire, writing in the Lever Brothers magazine
Progress after his death: -
He made periodical visits to Manchester to see his mother, to whom he was very devoted.
One of these periodical visits was his last, however, as he was lost when the
Lusitania was sunk!
He left San Salvador sometime in the middle of April, and boarded the s.s. Calamares, a vessel owned by the United Fruit Company, which had left Colón, Panama, on the 19th April, and stopped at a number of ports as it headed to New York City, which it reached on the 27th April.
After staying at The Arlington Hotel, in New York, George Gilpin boarded the
Lusitania in New York harbour on the morning of 1st May 1915, (with ticket number 46136), before she left on her fateful last ever voyage. He was allocated room E49, which was in the personal charge of First Class Bedroom Steward Vincent Settle, who came from Anfield, a district of Liverpool.
The liner did not leave her berth at Pier 54 until just after mid-day, because she was delayed by having to load cargo, passengers and crew from the Anchor Lines vessel
Cameronia, which the British Admiralty had requisitioned at the end of April, as a troop ship. Then six days out, the ship was sunk by the German submarine
U-20, within sight of the coast of southern Ireland and only hours away from her Liverpool destination.
George Gilpin was listed amongst the missing and no trace of his body was found at first, despite searches amongst all the unidentified corpses in the Queenstown mortuaries. Eventually, however, on 16th June 1915, it was washed up about five miles from Glandore Harbour in County Cork, about 30 miles from where the ship had been sunk. It was the 245th body to be found. A pocket book containing a number of visiting cards assisted in the identification, and it was dispatched to Manchester for burial, the same day.
It was formally identified there by his brother Walter, on the 18th June, although after over a month in the sea, this can have been no easy task, and it was buried on the 23rd June in St. James' Churchyard, Pendlebury, Lancashire. Many of Manchester’s businesses were represented at the funeral and a Mr. Edgar Smith represented the Cunard Steam Ship Company.
Obituaries for Mr. Gilpin appeared in local newspapers and also in the San Salvador newspapers
Diaro Latino and La Prensa.
Administration of his estate was granted to his widowed mother, at London on 9th July 1915, and his effects amounted to £8,953-1s-8d, (£8,953.06½p).
Bedroom Steward Settle, who had looked after George Gilpin in room E49, did survive the sinking, and eventually got back to his home in Anfield.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, West Yorkshire England Church of England Births and Baptisms 1813 – 1910, Manchester England Church of England Deaths and Burials 1813 – 1985, 1871 Census of England & Wales, 1881 Census of England & Wales, 1891 Census of England & Wales, UK Outward Passenger Lists 1890 – 1960, California Passenger and Crew Lists 1882 – 1959, New Orleans Passenger Lists 1813 – 1963, New York Passenger Lists 1820 – 1957, Cunard Records, Probate Records, Progress, PRO 22/71, PRO BT 100/345, UniLiv D92/2/268, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Lawrence Evans, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.