John David Crompton was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States of America, on the 15th March 1909, the third son and sixth child of Paul and Gladys Mary Crompton, (née Salis-Schwabe). His parents were British and the main family home was at 29, Gilston Road, Kensington, Middlesex, England. He had three brothers, Stephen, born in 1902, Paul, born in 1906 and Peter, born in 1914 and two sisters, Catherine born in 1904 and Alberta, born in 1903.
His father was a director of The Booth Steamship Company and his job took him all over the world - usually accompanied by his family. In fact, all the children, apart from Catherine, had been born abroad, whilst their father was engaged on business.
In the spring of 1915, the family had been living in St. Martin’s Lane, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the United States of America, where John Crompton was born and where Mr. Crompton was carrying out work on behalf of his firm. However, at that time, Paul Crompton was appointed to a position in London on behalf of the firm and made plans to return to Britain and take the whole family with him. This would also include Miss Dorothy Ditman Allen, who had been employed as a nursemaid to baby Peter.
As a result, they were all booked to sail from New York to Liverpool as saloon passengers on the
Lusitania on 1st May 1915. The booking was made through the Booth Line’s New York office situated at 17, Battery Place and the ticket issued for the party of nine was numbered 46081. Thus they left Philadelphia and travelled to New York at the end of April and joined the vessel at her berth at Pier 54 in the harbour, on the morning of 1st May.
Once on board, John Crompton was escorted to room D58 which he shared with his brother Stephen. The rest of the family also had rooms nearby on ‘D’ Deck and they all came under the personal charge of First Class Bedroom Steward William Barnes, who came from Wallasey in Cheshire, which was on the opposite bank of the River Mersey from Liverpool.
The liner’s departure from New York was delayed until the afternoon of 1st May and John Crompton probably spent most of his time on board after that, in the care of the Cunard Company’s nursery staff to allow his parents to make full use of the saloon class offerings. On the afternoon of 7th May, however, when the vessel was only hours away from her destination and twelve miles off the coast of southern Ireland, she was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine
U-20.
It is not known exactly what happened to the Crompton family after the liner was struck, as no surviving account mention them at all, but suffice it to say that all of them were killed as a result, as was Peter’s nurse, Miss Allen. As none survived, it is possible that they were all together at the time. The deaths of all the Cromptons was the greatest loss of any of the families on board at the time. John Crompton was aged six years.
His body was recovered from the sea, however and landed at Queenstown, where it was taken to one of the temporary mortuaries there and given the reference number 192. After a positive identification had been made, it was then buried, on 16th May 1915 in a private grave in The Old Church Cemetery, Queenstown, in Row 15, Grave 12.
By this time, the body of his brother Stephen had already been recovered and buried in the same grave and not long afterwards, Cunard in Queenstown received the following telegram, presumably from a family representative: -
MASTER CROMPTON’S BODY JUST FOUND. PLEASE BURY ALONGSIDE HIS BROTHER STEPHEN AND ADVISE PARTICULARS OF BURIAL. ALSO TELL US APPROXIMATE AGE, GIVE IDENTIFICATION MARKS ETC., TO ENABLE US TRY AND ASCERTAIN WHICH BOY IT IS.
It is not known what reply was sent to the sender.
Despite the fact that the family was obviously very wealthy, no headstone was ever put on the grave - or if one was, then there is no evidence of it’s being there today. This is probably because there were no close members of the family left to carry out this task. Since the grave was first dug, its position has been re-designated number 482. No property was found on John Crompton’s body, so it must have been identified whilst in the mortuary.
Bedroom Steward Barnes, who had looked after John and Stephen Crompton in room D58 did survive the sinking, however, and eventually made it back to his Merseyside home.
Pennsylvania Birth Certificates 1906 – 1911, 1910 U.S. Federal Census, Cunard Records, Ayr Advertiser, Last Voyage of the Lusitania, Seven Days to Disaster, Tragedy of the Lusitania, PRO 22/71, PRO BT 100/345, UniLiv. D92/2/360, UniLiv. PR13/6, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Stuart Williamson, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.