Edward Donald Melville Cunningham was born on a small sugar estate named “Mon Tourment’, Moka, Mauritius, on the 16th of April 1879, the son of John William
George Cunningham, a teacher from Edinburgh, Scotland, and his wife Marie Leoncine Chaillet, who was born in Mauritius, and of French descent. He was fluent in English and French and had three brothers and three sisters. Little is known of his childhood, except that his father died when Edward was aged 9 years.
He became a professional seaman, although it is not known what drew him to this way of life, and he eventually found his way to Liverpool, England, where there were abundant opportunities for mariners.
He married Mary Margaret Lambert at All Soul’s Catholic Church, Collingwood Street, Liverpool, on the 31st of October 1906. All Soul’s was deconsecrated in 1978 and the church building, and Collingwood Street itself, no longer exist. The couple initially resided with Mary’s parents at 20. Virgil Street, and later 38. Virgil Street, Liverpool, and they went on to have seven children – three sons and four daughters, although two of their sons died in infancy, leaving them to raise five children.
In October 1913, Edward Cunningham was serving as an Able Seaman on the Devonian when this vessel answered a distress call from the passenger liner, Volturno, which was on fire in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. There were 654 passengers and crew on board the Volturno at this time, and of these, 134 lost their lives. A raging storm and rough seas hampered the rescue efforts of the eleven vessels that answered the distress call, but the crew of the Devonian managed to take 59 survivors on board and brought them to Liverpool. As a result of their daring rescue efforts, Edward, and seventeen other members of the Devonian’s crew were presented with the Silver Sea Medal for Gallantry by King George V at Buckingham Palace in December 1914.
On the 12th April 1915, he engaged on board the Lusitania at Liverpool as an able seaman in the Deck Department. His monthly rate of pay in that rank was £5-10s.-0d. (£5.50p.), and he reported for duty at 7 a.m. on the 17th April 1915, before the vessel left Liverpool for the last time.
Having completed her voyage to New York, he survived her sinking three weeks later on the early afternoon of 7th May, when she was torpedoed by the German submarine U-20 off The Old Head of Kinsale in southern Ireland - only hours away from her home port on her return crossing!
On his return to Liverpool, like all surviving crew members, he was interviewed by an official from the Board of Trade and gave a deposition on oath, concerning his experiences of the sinking. Most of these depositions have long since been lost, including Edward Cunningham’s. Also, on returning to Liverpool, he received his wages for the voyage, being paid up to the 8th May.
Edward Cunningham and his family eventually moved to a tenement house at 6, Court, 9, Silvester Street in Liverpool, and Edward continued to serve on board vessels throughout the war years. He served as an Able Seaman, Special Lookout, and Quartermaster on various vessels, including the Empress of Russia while she was being chartered as a troop ship bringing Canadian troops back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean.
After the war, he continued to make trans-Atlantic crossing on various vessels, and then, like many other seafarers, he contracted tuberculosis. At that time, it is stated
that mariners were three times more likely to contract tuberculosis than males on land.
Edward Cunningham died in Brownlow Hill Workhouse Infirmary, Brownlow Hill, Liverpool, on the 13th March 1927, aged 47 years. He was buried in Ford Cemetery, Liverpool, on the 18th March, where he lies today.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, Liverpool England Catholic Marriages 1754 – 1933, Liverpool England Catholic Burials 1813 – 1985, 1911 Census of England, 1921 Census of England, Liverpool England Crew Lists 1861 – 1919, New York Passenger Lists 1820 – 1957, Cunard Records, UK Campaign Medals Awarded to World War I Merchant Seamen 1914 – 1925, Britain Merchant Seamen 1918 – 1941, BT 351/1/31790, Graham Maddocks, Pauline Campbell, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.
Revised & Updated –28th January 2023.