George Goode was born in Ashby Parva, Lutterworth, Leicestershire, England, in 1891, the son of John Benjamin and Alice Mary Goode (née Lacey). His father was a coal carter at the time of his birth, but the family later moved to Leicester, where his father worked as a milk delivery man. On completion of his education, George became a grocer’s assistant.
On the 31st March 1912, George arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in Canada on board the
Tunisian, and from there, he made his way to Toronto, Ontario, where he found work in a grocery store. He lived at 66, Wood Street, Toronto, Ontario.
In the spring of 1915, he decided to travel to England and booked third class passage on the May sailing of the
Lusitania from New York to Liverpool, through travel agents Sharpe, of Royal Bank Building, Yonge Street, Toronto. Having left Toronto at the end of April, he arrived at the Cunard berth at Pier 54 in New York harbour on the morning of 1st May 1915 in time for the liner’s scheduled 10.00 a.m. sailing.
Her sailing was delayed until the early afternoon, however, because she had to wait to embark passengers, crew and cargo from the liner
Cameronia which the British Admiralty had requisitioned for war service at the end of April.
Six days out of New York on the afternoon of 7th May, and within sight of the coast of southern Ireland, the
Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-20. At that time, she was only about 250 miles away from her Liverpool destination. George Goode was killed as a result of this action. He was aged 23 years.
After the sinking, his relatives in England sent a very detailed description of him to Cunard, which was passed on to the office in Queenstown. It stated: -
Description - Young man about 26 - very tall, rather over 6 ft - strongly built but quite thin, smooth face, pleasant expression, straight features, long chin, high forehead, dark hair worn rather long, tossed back in curve towards right side, parted at left side, and forming tuft over left ear. medium fair skin. blue-grey eyes, teeth white and even, but one missing on one side (do not remember which side) and one just beginning to go in front. Hands long and narrow, a worker’s hands, but well kept, and not used to hard manual labor. Probably dressed in dark blue serge, a neat and careful dresser, wore black leather belt. No. 8 boots, small wrist watch in black leather strap - was well supplied with money, usually carried 20 or 30 dollars in small black bill fold probably had new knife in his pocket, with two blades and cork screw, smallish knife, maker unknown, also small brown Japanese match safe, metal, with dragon engraved on it.
Relatives’ address - Goode (?)
5, Sidney Street,
Leicester,
England.
The Sidney Street address might be wrong, however, as there was no street of that name in Leicester itself at the time!
Despite the detail given in the description, no body matching it was ever recovered from the sea and as a result, George Goode has no known grave.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, 1901 Census of England & Wales, 1911 Census of England & Wales, Canadian Passenger Lists 1865 – 1935, Cunard Records, PRO BT 100/345, UniLiv. PR13/6, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, J.M. Jenkins, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.