Joseph William Frankum was born in Basingstoke, Hampshire, England, on the 12th March 1880, the son, and one of twelve children, of Francis and Fanny Frankum (née Williams). His father was a carpenter, and at the time of his birth, the family home was at Charter Alley, Monk Sherborne, Hampshire. While he was still a child, the family moved to 1. Jardine Road, Aston, Birmingham, Warwickshire, but some years later returned to Monk Sherborne.
Following in his father’s footsteps, Joseph became a carpenter, and became engaged to be married to Annie Maria Booth Watson, who was a domestic servant from Aston, Birmingham. Presumably they met while the Frankums lived there.
On the 11th May 1905, Joseph boarded the Canada at Liverpool, and disembarked in Quebec, Canada, eleven days later. From there he travelled to London, Ontario, where he found work. Once he became established in his new surroundings, he sent word to Annie Watson, and when she duly arrived in London, the couple were married on the 3rd August 1906.
On the 20th May 1907, their son – William Joseph was born in London, Ontario; however, he died of cholera on the 15th September of the same year, having lived for only four months.
The couple next moved to Detroit, Michigan, in the United States of America, where their son, Francis J., was born in 1908. They must have been very unsettled during this period of their lives, because they returned to London, Ontario, where their next child, Frederick George, was born in 1910. They had returned to Detroit by 1914, as their last child, Winifrid Annie was born there in July of that year.
By 1915, his paternal grandmother was living at 55. Webster Street, Aston, Birmingham. Perhaps because the war seriously affected the manufacturing industries in the United States, at least at first, in early 1915, the family decided to return to Aston and left Detroit for New York having booked a sailing as third class passengers on the May sailing of the
Lusitania.
Having left Detroit some time in April, they boarded the liner at the Cunard berth at Pier 54 in New York on May Day morning in 1915, in time for her scheduled 10.00 a.m. departure. They were allocated room H17. The liner’s sailing was then actually delayed until 12.27 p.m. by having to embark cargo, passengers and crew from the liner
Cameronia, which had been requisitioned at the end of April by the British Admiralty as a troop ship.
Then six days later, on the afternoon of 7th May, the Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk, by the German submarine
U-20, off The Old Head of Kinsale in southern Ireland. Although Joseph and seven year old Francis survived this action, the rest of the family was lost - and none of their bodies was ever found and identified. Joseph Frankum was aged 36 years at the time.
His ordeal was later outlined in The Birmingham Daily Post in the edition of Monday 10th May 1915, when he related: -
At the time of the disaster, we were sitting down forward having a cup of tea. As soon as the explosion occurred I gripped my two boys while my wife took charge of the little girl. We made our way along the deck. In the hurry I dropped my little boy who dropped about 6ft., but I picked him up again, and we made our way towards one of the lifeboats. Then leaving my wife and children alongside a boat, I went downstairs to get lifebelts. When I got on deck, I found that my wife and children had not got places.
We clung to one another as the ship went down. I stuck to my wife and children as long as I could but as we sank, we were separated. After a great struggle I came to the surface. I could find no traces of my wife nor any of my children. Seeing an overturned lifeboat nearby, I struck out, and climbed on the keel.
A young gentleman who was on the boat tried to comfort me for the loss of my family, and while he was so engaged, a man’s body floated alongside us. The young gentleman picked up an oar and lifted the head of the dead man. “Good God,” he cried, “It’s my own father.”
We were picked up and brought to Queenstown. I thought I had lost all my family, but judge of my surprise when I came across my eldest boy, seven years of age, in the hotel this morning. He and my wife and the other children had got into a boat which turned turtle. However, the boy clung to the boat and was rescued.
After Joseph Frankum was landed at Queenstown, he had met a second cabin survivor, Mr. F.J. Lucas who came from nearby Smethwick. Presumably as Joseph Frankum wished to stay in Queenstown to continue the search for his missing wife and children, he asked Mr. Lucas to go to Webster Street and speak to his family there. This was reported in
The Smethwick Telephone on 15th May 1915: -
Before coming on to Smethwick Mr. Lucas went to fulfil a promise made to a fellow passenger - that he would inform his relatives at Aston that he was safe. This was a very pathetic ordeal after all he had gone through, for Mr. Frankum - the fellow passenger - had lost his wife and the two youngest children, and the father and eldest boy alone had been saved. This was the news he had to take to Aston.
After his return to Birmingham, Joseph Frankum applied to The Lusitania Relief Fund for financial help. This fund was set up by The Lord Mayor of Liverpool and other local businessmen to give aid to those survivors or relatives of the dead who were experiencing financial difficulties as a result of the sinking. The award committee made him an immediate and final award of £5-0s-0d so that he could replace his carpentry tools and effects and begin to make a living for himself and Francis again.
On 2nd November 1915, however, Joseph Frankum volunteered for the British Army - presumably to avenge the deaths of his loved ones - and was drafted to France in May 1916 as 2554 Private J.W Frankum of The Royal Army Medical Corps. He then continued to serve until he was demobilised in 1919.
In February of that year, he wrote to Cunard from the British Expeditionary Force in France, seeking death certificates for the lost members of his family so that he could begin the process of claiming compensation. As a forwarding address, he gave the name of Mrs. A.J. Frankum - presumably an aunt or sister-in-law - at 4, Burlington Street, Aston, Birmingham.
Joseph Frankum later filed a claim for compensation which was considered after the war by the Mixed Claims Commission. The compensation was sought for the loss of his wife. As Joseph Frankum was a citizen of Great Britain, and therefore no American citizen suffered loss, injury, or damage, as a result of Annie’s death, no award was made.
In 1920, Joseph Frankum married Jessie Elizabeth Mitchell in Kelvin, Lanarkshire, Scotland, and the couple lived at 1. Queen’s Terrace, Dunoon, Argyll, Scotland. Joseph’s son, Francis, resided with them.
Joseph Frankum died in Dunoon on the 13th December 1953, aged 73 years.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, England Select Births and Christenings 1538 – 1975, Ontario Canada Marriages 1826 – 1937, Ontario Canada Births 1858 – 1913, 1881 Census of England & Wales, 1891 Census of England & Wales, 1901 Census of England & Wales, Detroit Border Crossings and Passenger and Crew Lists 1905 – 1963, U.S. Border Crossings from Canada to U.S. 1895 – 1960, Cunard Records, Mixed Claims Commission Docket No. 2188, British Army WW1 Medal Rolls Index Cards 1914 – 1920, Liverpool Record Office, Smethwick Telephone, Birmingham Daily Gazette, Birmingham Daily Post, PRO MIC, UniLiv.D92/1/2, UniLiv D92/2/255, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Joe Devereux, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.