Harold William ‘Hal’ Taylor was born in Leeds, Yorkshire, England, on the 30th November 1894, the son of George Thompson and Bertha Taylor, (née Horsfall). His father was a cabinet maker, and Hal was one of six children. The family moved to Birmingham, and then Manchester, while he was a child, and by 1911 the family home was at 16, Mount Pleasant, Salford, Lancashire, England.
Hal Taylor started his working life as a clerk for a printing firm, but then became an electrician.
Whilst in his teens, Hal Taylor had met and fallen in love with Lucy ’Cis’ Haddock and when Cis’s family had gone to the United States of America in July 1913, from where Cis’s father had originated, he followed them there at the end of November. He then lived with her family at 226, Sixth Street, in Niagara Falls, New York, until their eventual marriage which took place at Niagara Falls Episcopal Church, on 29th April, 1915.
The newlyweds had already decided to travel back home to Salford on a honeymoon visit, and consequently, they had booked third class passage for themselves on the Lusitania, which was scheduled to leave New York for Liverpool on the morning of 1st May 1915. Arriving at the Cunard berth at Pier 54 in time for this sailing the couple, in concert with all the other passengers and crew, had to wait until just after mid-day before the liner actually left port, because she had to embark passengers, crew and cargo from the Anchor Liner Cameronia, which had been requisitioned by the British Admiralty for war work, at the end of April.
Six days out of New York, on the afternoon of 7th May, the Lusitania was sunk by the German submarine U-20, off the coast of southern Ireland, and new husband and wife were parted for the first time. Both survived the ordeal, however and when Harold Taylor was eventually landed at Queenstown, he told his story to the press, part of which was later published by Captain Frederick D. Ellis in his book The Tragedy of the Lusitania, in 1915: -
H.W. Taylor and his bride were on their honeymoon. Mrs. Taylor, hardly more than a girl, cried she would not be separated from her husband. The two were standing at the rail near a lifeboat loaded with women. The Lusitania was settling.
“I won't go, I won't!" Mrs. Taylor was screaming. Her husband extricated himself from her desperate embrace, kissed her, and dropped her into the boat. Before she could climb back to him he had cut the boat away. Something had happened in the engine room which made it impossible to reverse the propellers and check the liner's impetus. The boat fell astern, the bride hysterical.
Taylor tells the rest of the story himself - a story with a big surprise: "I stood at the rail waiting for the end," he said. “I knew it was no use to jump. I can't swim a stroke, and I had no lifebelt. So I went down with the ship. I died a dozen times before I came up out of the vortex. There was still enough life in me to be worth taking a chance. I got hold of a bit of wreckage. It went down with me. We came up again, went down again.
Then somebody grabbed me by the hair. Other hands slipped under my arms and I was dragged into a boat. When I opened my eyes a woman's arms were around my neck. I looked up. It was my wife, sitting in the seat on to which I had thrown her."
This latter paragraph is not true, however and is necessarily a sensationalising of the true story, because in actual fact, the pair did not meet again until after both of them had been landed - independently of each other - at Queenstown, on the morning of 8th May. Hal Taylor was, by this time, dressed in a sailor’s uniform which he had been given on the ship that had rescued him from the sea and his wife spotted him walking down the street! By this time, she had already sent a telegram to her parents, which stated: -
DEAR MOTHER I AM QUITE SAFE BUT NOT MY HUSBAND.
but she was able to follow it with another one which had the more accurate, (if not misspelled) happy news :-
BOTH SAVE HADDOCK
Having been reunited with his wife, Hal and Cis Taylor eventually made it back to his parents’ Mount Pleasant address in Salford, at 4.30 a.m. on Sunday 9th May, none the worse for their ordeal except that Cis Taylor was suffering from shock. Once home, Hal Taylor was interviewed by a representative of his local paper The Salford City Reporter. This interview was published on Saturday 15th May 1915 and apart from being much more detailed, it told a totally different and more accurate story of the reunion between himself and his wife. It stated: -
“We were informed on Friday that the lights would be put out at 7 o’ clock so that we could make a dash in the dark to Liverpool. So in the middle of the day, I and my wife went into the cabin to pack our things. We were doing this when there was a sudden shock which threw me against the side of the cabin.
We rushed into the dining saloon where lunch was on, but as I had forgotten the life-belts I had to go back to the cabin for them. When I returned to the saloon the ship was listing heavily and the tables were overturning. There were few signs of panic though people were of course rushing out of the saloon to get onto the decks. I and the wife got on the second deck and as we ran I managed to fasten a life-belt on her. We had no instructions what
to do in case of an accident, so we followed the crowd and made for the low side.
Only women and children were allowed to get into the boats. The first two capsized as they were being launched. I managed to get my wife into the third, which was numbered 15. The boats hold 60 each but my wife tells me there were 80 people in her boat. There was no plug in the boat and she took on water, so that it was necessary to bale. Shortly afterwards, some of her passengers were transferred to another Lusitania boat. There were a few men in No 15 working her, but so far as I could see they were not members of the crew. This boat was out for two and a half hours when the passengers were picked up by a paddle steamer and taken to Queenstown.”
The paddle steamer was almost certainly the Queenstown harbour tender Flying Fish. Mr Taylor continued: -
When my wife had left I noticed that all the boats that had been launched were full of passengers except the last two, and they were rapidly filled. The crews seemed to be struggling with these. I saw there were too many and I just held back on the deck and waited. The last boat to be launched caught the davits and all its occupants were thrown into the sea.
I was on deck when the vessel went down, which was not more than eighteen minutes after she was struck. As she sank, a minister’s wife, myself and another man were sucked into one of the funnels and we were all shot out again immediately, as black as soot. Members of the crew afterwards explained that the expulsive force had been a rush of steam from the boilers.
The minister’s wife was second cabin passenger Mrs. Margaret Gwyer and at least two other men are also known to have suffered a similar experience. They were First Class Bedroom Steward Edward Bond and saloon passenger Inspector William Pierpoint, so William Taylor could have been referring to either of these. He continued his narrative: -
“I then got caught in the suction and dragged down. I seemed to be revolving all the time. I kept going down and down - for how long I cannot say, for I was practically unconscious. When I came to the surface, I managed to grab hold of a broken oar which was floating past. This enabled me to get my breath again and certainly saved me from drowning.
Then I drifted against a small water-logged boat with the bows broken in. I clutched at it, and by a great effort got inside. Two ladies and a man were holding on to the other end. I dragged in the two ladies and the man got in himself. Then two stewards floated alongside and got in. There was water in the boat up to within six inches of the top. We had to start baling at once. We used a small bucket which we found in the boat, an old hat and the glass of a lamp and later we secured another bucket which was floating in the water.
We were baling for 2½ hours, the water running in as fast as we threw it out. The ladies standing knee-deep in water did a splendid share of the work, and set us a very good example. We picked up yet another man. The water seemed to be full of dead bodies and wreckage. Doors, chests of
drawers and all sorts of things were floating about. Our boat was stationary. We could not work her, only kept baling out the water. It was two hours before any relief vessel came into sight. We were eventually picked up by a destroyer and taken to Queenstown.”
On the pier at Queenstown, Mr. Taylor met his wife who had seen him go down with the ship and had little hope of greeting him again. Mr Taylor confirmed the statement which had been made, that many of the passengers, especially the first class, were so confident that the ship would not sink that they made no effort to get away and went down with her. He says he saw no sign of escort for the liner throughout the voyage. The chance of an attack was talked about among the passengers but most people thought it impossible.
On Thursday night, however, some of the women were very nervous and did not like to go to bed. Passengers told Mr. Taylor that they saw the submarine, taking it at first for a porpoise, and that they saw the whole track of the torpedo.
Mr. and Mrs. Taylor senior were delighted to see their son and his new bride, as they had thought at first that the couple were crossing the Atlantic on the White Star liner Megantic. They only received the letter from their son saying that instead, he and his wife were travelling on the Lusitania on the morning of Saturday 8th May, by which time news of the sinking had made the headlines.
Happily, a telegram from Hal Taylor arrived a few hours later, which announced his and his wife’s survival, and put an end to their anxiety!
Soon after his return home, Hal Taylor applied to The Lusitania Relief Fund, for financial help. This fund had been set up immediately after the liner had gone down, by The Lord Mayor of Liverpool and other local business dignitaries to help second and third class passenger survivors and the relatives of those who had perished, who had come upon financial difficulties as a result of the sinking. It was thought at the time that the saloon passengers would not need financial help!
The application he made was in respect of the injury to his wife’s health brought about by the sinking but this can not have been too serious, because the awards committee only granted her the full and final sum of £10-0s-0d. in respect of it.
Unable to return to America because of the war, Hal and Cis Taylor then set up home at 4, Almond Grove, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester, Lancashire. Hal Taylor was eventually conscripted into the Army, in which he served without mishap until his eventual demobilisation when peace came. During this time, two children were born to him and his wife, - Marjorie Lusitania Gabriella and Dorothy Joan.
In 1920, they set off to return to America, sailing via Canada and once there, at first lived with Cis’s parents at Sixth Avenue, Niagara Falls, and later moved to a house of their own at Belden Avenue two doors away from where Cis’s parents had also moved. They eventually settled at Munson Avenue, where they had two more children, Audrey and Wesley. Unfortunately, however, Wesley later died when only a young boy, in the late 1920s.
Hal Taylor worked for the Niagara Falls Power Company until he retired.
He died on the 10th June 1960, aged 65 years. He was buried in Acacia Park Cemetery, Niagara Falls. His wife died in 1976 and was buried beside him.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, New York U.S. County Marriage Records 1907 – 1936, New York State Death Index 1957 – 1968, 1901 Census of England & Wales, 1911 Census of England & Wales, 1925 New York State Census, 1930 U.S. Federal Census, 1940 U.S. Federal Census, New York Passenger Lists 1820 – 1957, Canadian Passenger Lists 1865 – 1935, Cunard Records, U.S. World War II Draft Registration Cards 1942, Liverpool Records Office, Niagara Falls Gazette, Salford City Reporter, Tragedy of the Lusitania, Brotherton Library UniLeeds, UniLiv D92/2/280, Graham Maddocks, Stuart Williamson, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.