Margaret Shenty was born in Preston, Lancashire, England, on the 5th March 1878, the daughter of Thomas and Sarah Shenty (née Akers). Her father was a general labourer, and her mother was a cotton weaver. Margaret was the eldest of four known children.
On completing her education, Margaret became a cotton weaver, like her mother, and then, in the summer of 1902, she married John Richard Singleton in Preston. Their daughter, Hilda, was born in September 1904, but then, in late 1906, John Singleton died.
Sometime later, she met Albert Topping, a railway labourer and former soldier, and in early 1911, Margaret gave birth to her second child, a son named Walter Singleton, who died a few months after his birth. It is likely that Albert Topping was the child’s father.
In June 1912, Albert Topping immigrated to Brooklyn, New York, in the United States of America, and when he had found employment and accommodation, he sent for Margaret and Hilda Singleton to join him, which they duly did in August.
On the 23rd August 1912, two days after Margaret Singleton arrived in Brooklyn, she married Albert Topping. Margaret’s daughter, Hilda, began using her step-fathers name from this time, being known as Hilda Topping.
In January 1915, Albert Topping decided to return to Britain to re-enlist in his former unit, The Loyal North Lancashire Regiment, and on his arrival, was posted to the 3rd (Reserve) Battalion, in training at Felixstowe, Suffolk.
Margaret Topping then decided to return with Hilda to England, with the intention of staying with friends in Preston, and having apparently obtained passage for them both, paid for by the British government, she cabled her husband on 28th April, with the news of their imminent return, on the Lusitania - although she had originally intended to return to England on an American ship. They then joined the Cunarder at New York as third class passengers, before the liner sailed, on 1st May 1915.
Neither of them ever saw Albert Topping again, for they were both killed when the liner went down, six days later, having been torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-20. At that stage of the Lusitania’s voyage, she was only about 14 hours steaming time away from her Liverpool home port. No trace of their bodies was ever found and identified afterwards. Margaret Topping was aged 37 years.
Albert Topping, was naturally devastated by the events of that sunny May afternoon. The Lancashire Daily Post of 10th May 1915, reported: -
The husband, who was in training at Felixstowe, got leave from his regiment to meet the boat on Friday. He came on to Preston, where he has been waiting in suspense for news of his wife and daughter. He is determined to get what revenge he can out of the Germans, and on Saturday he induced ten men to enlist.
He survived the Great War.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, Lancashire England Church of England Births and Baptisms 1813 – 1911, National School Admission Registers & Log Books 1870 – 1914, 1881 Census of England & Wales, 1891 Census of England & Wales, 1901 Census of England & Wales, New York Passenger Lists 1820 – 1957, Cunard Records, Lancashire Daily Post, Preston Herald, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.