Ann, always known as “Nina”, Buck was born in Knaresborough, Yorkshire, England, in 1863, the daughter of Francis and Charlotte Matilde Buck (née Gibbs). Her father was a house furnisher, and the family home was at Market Place, Knaresborough. Nina was the youngest of five known children in the family.
On the 8th April 1891, she married John Harry Deacon Wickham in Harrogate, Yorkshire. Her husband was a merchant and sometime after their wedding they moved to Cape Town, South Africa, where their first child, a son named John Neville Deacon, was born in 1893.
The family returned to England, where they resided at 6. Granville Road, Finchley, and where their three other sons were born – Digby Frederick Deacon, born in 1894, and twins Wilfred Edmund and Harry Francis Deacon, who were born in 1895.
It is believed that the family resided in New Zealand for a number years in the late 1890’s and early 1900’s before returning to England, and it is likely that Nina and her husband became estranged, as by 1911, her husband was residing in Melbourn, Cambridgeshire, with their two youngest sons, while Nina resided at 38. Sinclair Road, Kensington, London, where she ran a boarding house, with the couple’s two eldest sons residing with her.
In October 1912, Nina’s three youngest sons, Digby, Francis, and Harry immigrated to New Zealand where they settled in Pongakawa, Bay of Plenty, North Island, and worked as farmers.
At some stage after hers sons had settled in New Zealand, Nina Wickham travelled there to visit them, before deciding to return to her home in London in the spring of 1915. Consequently, she set out for the United States of America on the first leg of her journey, from Auckland, New Zealand, on the Canadian-Australasian Royal Mail Lines ship the S.S. Niagara. She then landed at Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada on 8th April 1915.
On 1st May 1915, she arrived at the Cunard berth, at Pier 54 in New York port to board the Lusitania as a second cabin passenger, in time for the liner’s scheduled 10.00 a.m. departure. This was then delayed until the early afternoon, as she had to embark passengers, crew and cargo from the Anchor Liner Cameronia, which had been requisitioned by the British Admiralty for war work as a troop ship, at the end of April.
The Lusitania finally left the port just after mid-day and just six days later, on the
afternoon of 7th May, she was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-20, off the coast of southern Ireland, only about 250 miles from her Liverpool home port and destination.
Nina Wickham was killed as a result of this infamous act, although her body was recovered from the sea and landed at Queenstown soon afterwards. Once there, it was taken to the temporary mortuary set up in the yard of the Cunard office at Lynch’s Quay on the waterfront, where it was given the reference number 54. Once it had been positively identified, however, it was buried on the 10th May 1915 in The Old Church Cemetery, two miles north of the town, in Mass Grave C, 5th Row, Lower Tier, where it lies to this day. It was on 10th May that most of the recovered bodies were buried in a mass funeral service, following a long procession which began at Lynch’s Quay. Nina Wickham was aged 42 years. She was obviously identified by a crew member, fellow passenger, or from property found on her body, as she was one of the recovered bodies which were not photographed.
After her death was reported in New Zealand, letters of administration were taken out by her son Mr. J.N.D. Wickham, of Pongakawa, to enable him to handle her property, and having sent these letters to Messrs. Powell, Rogers & Merrick, who were solicitors of 17, Essex Street, of The Strand, London, the firm took charge of her property on 23rd December 1915. It consisted of £21-0s-0d., in gold coinage, a gold signet ring with a blood stone set into it which was engraved with the name NINA, an antique rose diamond cluster ring, a 22 carat English gold wedding ring, a crossover diamond ring with two stones, a single stone diamond ring and a silver brooch.
Another lawyer, Mr. H. Buxton Ashton, of Sackville Street, London, had also been instructed by Mr. Wickham to handle his late mother’s affairs in June 1915.
In the summer of 1915, Cunard’s New York office took charge of a trunk belonging to Nina Wickham which was forwarded there by the Canadian-Australasian Royal Mail Lines and which had originally been intended to follow Mrs. Wickham to England. It was eventually forwarded to 21, Coneragh Road, West Kensington, London, which was by then the home of Mrs. Wickham’s eldest son, John.
Germany had not finished with the Wickham family for her eldest son, 2nd Lieutenant John Neville Deacon Wickham, 7th Bn. King’s Own Royal Lancashire Regiment, was killed in action on the 31st July 1917 in Flanders. As his body was not recovered or identified, and he has no known grave, his name is inscribed on the Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial to the Missing in Ypres, Belgium.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, 1871 Census of England & Wales, 1881 Census of England & Wales, 1891 Census of England & Wales, 1911 Census of England & Wales, Canadian Passenger Lists 1865 – 1935, U.S. Border Crossings from Canada to U.S. 1895 – 1960, Cunard Records, Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Homeward Mail, PRO BT 100/345, UniLiv.D92/1/8-10, UniLiv D92/2/229, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.