Henry Thomas Matthews was born in the Totnes area of Devon, England, on the 13th December 1863, the son of George Richard and Jane Rose Ellen Matthews (née Broom). His father was a horse driver, and also worked on the railways and as an excavator. Henry was the second eldest of five known children in the family.
Nothing is known of his early life, although it is believed that his parents had separated by 1881, and his mother married a man named John Rice. It is likely that this marriage was bigamous as she married John Rice again in 1895, just after George Richard Matthews died!
On the 22nd December 1900, Henry Matthews married Flora Ellen Swinney in Plymouth, Devon, and the couple resided for a time at 4. Brookdown Villas, Saltash, Devon, where Henry Marshall worked as a riveter in a shipbuilding company. The couple had no children.
In the early 1900’s, Henry and his wife moved north to Lancashire, settling at 30. Harrowby Road, Seaforth, on the outskirts of Liverpool.
Henry Matthews joined the Mercantile Marine as a waiter on passenger ships, and in April 1915, he engaged as a second class waiter in the Stewards' Department on board the Lusitania in time for her departure from Liverpool on her 201st crossing of the Atlantic Ocean on the 17th April.
Having successfully reached New York, he was still on board when the liner left Pier 54 in New York harbour to return to her home port on the 1st May. Then, six days later, on the afternoon of the 7th May, while the great liner was steaming about 12 miles off the Old Head of Kinsale, she was sunk by a torpedo launched from the German submarine U-20.
Henry Matthews survived the sinking, and having been rescued from the sea, he eventually made his way back to Liverpool where he was officially discharged from the last voyage of the Lusitania.
He continued to serve on passenger liners until his retirement.
When his wife died in 1925, he moved to 282. St. Benedict’s Road, Small Heath, Birmingham, Warwickshire to reside with his younger brother, Thomas Leonard Matthews, and his family, until his death on the 27th April 1927, aged 63 years.
Administration of his estate of £160-11s.-0d. (£160.55p.) was granted on the 2oth |May 1927 at Birmingham to his brother, Thomas, who was described as being a postman.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, Devon England Church of England Births and Baptisms 1813 – 1920, 1871 Census of England, 1901 Census of England, 1911 Census of England, 1921 Census of England, Cunard Records, Probate Records, PRO BT 350, PRO BT 351/1/89819, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.
Revised & Updated - 29th October 2024.