John Edward Ford was born in Liverpool, Lancashire, England, in 1866, the son of Andrew and Ellen Ford (née Corrigan). His father was a labourer and John was one of six known children in the family.
He married Catherine Donovan in Liverpool on the 27th May 1896, and they lived at 8, Court, 2 House, Burlington Street, Liverpool, Lancashire. The couple had seven children.
He signed on as a fireman in the Engineering Branch on board the Lusitania in April 1915, and was on board when the liner departed from Liverpool on the 17th April on what would prove to be her final voyage. He was still on board the Lusitania when she set out on the return leg of her voyage back to Liverpool on the 1st May. and was killed when she was sunk after being torpedoed by the German submarine U-20, off the southern coast of Ireland. He was aged 49 years, although his age is recorded on the crew manifest as being 45 years.
His body was recovered from the sea afterwards and landed at Queenstown, where it was given the reference number 55 in one the mortuaries there. Once his identity had been established, however, on the 10th May 1915, he was buried in The Old Church Cemetery, Queenstown, in Mass Grave C, 6th Row, Lower Tier. This was the day on which most of the victims of the disaster were buried, after a long funeral procession
from the town itself.
No property belonging to him was ever recovered.
Despite the recovery of his body and its subsequent burial, the records of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission list him as being missing and his name is correspondingly recorded on the Mercantile Marine Memorial at Tower Hill, London. Following information from Graham Maddocks, however, it accepted that he had an actual burial site and amended the Tower Hill Memorial register to record this fact. It further agreed to commemorate him at Cobh, (formerly Queenstown), at some time in the future and also stated that should the bronze panel bearing his name at Tower Hill ever need to be replaced, then his name would be omitted from the replacement.
In November 1998, a permanent memorial was erected in The Old Church Cemetery at Cobh to all those members of the Mercantile Marine buried in the three mass graves there. It takes the form of a monument carved from Irish limestone, sited at the head of Mass Grave B, the centre one of the three. The names of the crew members are incised on two black granite panels on the memorial, with a legend in between them, which reads: -
1914 - 1918
IN HONOURED MEMORY
OF THOSE NAMED WHO,
SERVING ON THE
RMS LUSITANIA,
DIED WHEN THE SHIP WAS
SUNK BY ENEMY ACTION
ON 7 MAY 1915
AND ARE BURIED NEARBY
The name of Fireman Ford is incised on the left hand panel.
In August 1915, Catherine Ford was given the balance of wages owing to her late husband for his service on the Lusitania’s final voyage. In addition, The Liverpool and London War Risks Insurance Association Limited also granted her a yearly pension to compensate her for the loss of her husband. This amounted to £61-5s.-9d. (£61.28½p.) per annum, which was payable at the rate of £5-2s.-2d. (£5.11p.) per month.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, Liverpool England Catholic Marriages 1754 – 1933, 1881 Census of England, 1891 Census of England, 1901 Census of England, 1911 Census of England, 1921 Census of England, Cunard Records, Commonwealth War Graves Commission, PRO BT 334, UniLiv. PR 13/24, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Arthur Ford, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.
Revised & Updated – 24th November 2023.