Alberta Crompton was born in Manhattan, New York City, in the United States of America, in 1903, the eldest daughter and second child of Paul and Gladys Mary Crompton, (née Salis-Schwabe). Her father was a director of The Booth Steamship Company and often travelled around the world in connection with his business. It was on one of these trips abroad that Alberta was born. She had four brothers, Stephen, born in 1902, Paul, born in 1906, John born in 1909, and Peter, born in 1914, and one sister, Catherine, born in 1904. The family home was at 29, Gilston Road, Kensington, Middlesex, England.
In the spring of 1915, the family had been living in St. Martin’s Lane, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the United States of America when Alberta’s father was offered a position in London to represent the company’s interests there. Consequently, he decided to take them all, (and baby Peter’s nurse Miss Dorothy Ditman Allen) back to Great Britain.
Booking saloon passage for them all on the Lusitania, through The Booth Line’s New York office, which was situated at 17, Battery Place, the family left Philadelphia at the end of April and joined the liner at her berth in New York harbour on the morning of 1st May, in time for her sailing. Having boarded with ticket number 46081, Alberta Crompton was escorted to her room, D60, which she shared with her sister Catherine and her brother John. Their room was the personal responsibility of First Class Bedroom Steward William Barnes, who came from Wallasey in Cheshire, which was on the opposite bank of the River Mersey from Liverpool, the
Lusitania's home port.
The voyage was probably not particularly eventful for Alberta Crompton, being used to a fairly opulent life as she was, but everything ceased on the afternoon of 7th May when the steamer was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine
U-20 off the southern coast of Ireland, only hours away from her destination!
Every member of the Crompton family and Peter’s nurse Miss Allen were killed as a result of the torpedoing and it is possible that they all perished together. Alberta Crompton was aged twelve years. As her body was never recovered from the sea and identified after the sinking, she has no known grave. The loss of all seven of her family represents, with her death, the greatest loss of any family on board on that May afternoon.
Bedroom Steward Barnes, who had looked after Alberta, and her brother and sister in room D60, did survive the sinking, however, and eventually made it back to his home on Merseyside.
1910 U.S. Federal Census, New York Passenger Lists 1820 – 1957, Cunard Records, Ayr Advertiser, Last Voyage of the Lusitania, Tragedy of the Lusitania, PRO 22/71, PRO BT 100/345, UniLiv. D92/2/360, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Stuart Williamson, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.