George Albert Percy Sullivan was born in Mile End, London, England, on the 22nd February 1877, the son of Captain Thomas and Helen Jane Sullivan (née Jones). He was the youngest of three children – all boys, and while he was still an infant, his family moved to Toxteth Park, Liverpool. By 1911, the family home was at 10, Burns Avenue, Liscard, Wallasey.
George served his apprenticeship as an engineer at the Birkenhead ship building yard of Messrs. Cammel, Laird and Company Limited and afterwards gained his Chief Engineer’s certificate after serving on Liverpool steamers.
In 1900, he had emigrated to the United States of America and settled in Boston, Massachusetts, but later moved to the nearby town of Quincy where he worked as a machinist.
He travelled to Wallasey for a holiday in 1907, and it is likely that it was during this visit that he became engaged to be married to Emily Jones, who was also from Wallasey.
He returned to Boston in November 1907, and his fiancée followed him in June 1908. Within hours of her arrival in Boston, Massachusetts, on board the Ivernia, the couple were married in Quincy.
The couple later moved to Groton, Connecticut, where they set up their home on Allen Street. Edward found work as a machinist with the New London Ship & Engine Company, where he manufactured submarines, and he also became secretary of the local branch of The Amalgamated Society of Engineers.
Perhaps because of the war, in the spring of 1915, they decided to return to Wallasey to visit both sets of parents and as a consequence, they booked second cabin passage on
the Lusitania, which was due to sail from New York on the morning of 1st May 1915. Having left Groton at the end of April, they travelled to New York in time for the liner’s scheduled 10.00 a.m. sailing, which was then delayed. This was because she had to embark passengers, crew and cargo from the Anchor Liner Cameronia, which had been requisitioned by the British Admiralty for war service as a troop ship, at the end of April.
The Lusitania finally left port just after mid-day and just six days later, on the afternoon of 7th May; she was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-20. At that point, she was off The Old Head of Kinsale in southern Ireland and only about fourteen hours sailing time away from her Liverpool home port.
Both George and Emily Sullivan were killed, as a result of this action and as their bodies were never recovered from the sea and identified afterwards, neither has a known grave.
George Sullivan was aged 38 years.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, Massachusetts U.S. Marriage Records 1840 – 1915, 1881 Census of England & Wales, 1891 Census of England & Wales, New York Passenger Lists 1820 – 1957, Cunard Records, Massachusetts U.S. State and Federal Naturalization Records 1798 – 1950, Hartford Courant, Liverpool Echo, Norwich Bulletin, Wallasey and Wirral Chronicle, PRO BT 100/345, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.