Charles Edwin Paynter was born on the 5th June 1851, the son of William Cox and Emma Ellen Paynter (née Dyer), of Tyddyndai, Amlwch, Anglesey, North Wales. His father was a timber merchant. He was one of five children.
He was educated privately, and moved to Liverpool, Lancashire, as a teenager when he became apprenticed to a timber broker. In 1882, he married Jane Emily Sophia Seager who was the eldest daughter of Lieutenant-General Edward Seager, C.B., who had ridden in the Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava, in October 1854, during the Crimean War, with the 8th Hussars. The family home for many years was at 61. Devonshire Road, Birkenhead, and later at 17, Kingsmead Road South, Oxton, Birkenhead, Cheshire, and the couple had four daughters, Florence Violet, known as ‘Freda’, Irene Emily, Evelyn Frederica, and Kathleen Mary. Mrs. Paynter, known by her second forename Emily, died in December 1912.
Charles Paynter was a member of the firm of Alfred Dobell and Company, who were timber brokers of Liverpool, and in 1904-5, he was president of the Liverpool Timber Trades Association. In 1911, he was elected a member of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board to represent the timber trade, and he was also a member of the Council of the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce. He was a very active Freemason being a past master of St. George's Lodge of Harmony, No. 32, a member of The Lodge of Perseverance, No 155 and he was also connected with Latham Lodge, all based in the Liverpool area. He was also a keen golfer and a member of The Royal Liverpool Golf Club at Hoylake, Cheshire.
In March 1915, he embarked upon a business trip to the United States of America, from Liverpool, on the White Star liner Adriatic - and took his daughter Irene with him. They arrived on 16th March for a six week’s stay and had already booked return saloon tickets numbered 46133, for their journey back on the Lusitania’s May sailing. Thus, they stayed at The Seville Hotel in New York, before joining the liner on the morning of 1st May 1915, Mr. Paynter being allocated room B99 on board, and his
daughter was just down the passageway in room B105. Both of these rooms were the personal responsibility of First Class Bedroom Steward Thomas Dawes, who came from Walton in Liverpool. The liner’s scheduled 10 o’clock departure was then delayed until just after mid-day, while she embarked passengers, some of the crew and the cargo from the Anchor Lines vessel Cameronia, which the British Admiralty had requisitioned as a troop ship at the end of April.
Six days later, when the ship was sunk, within sight of the coast of southern Ireland, by the German submarine U-20, Charles Paynter was killed, although his daughter Irene survived. She later related exactly what happened, to a reporter of The Birkenhead News and Advertiser, and her account was published in the edition of Wednesday 12th May 1915, and stated: -
Up to the last moment Mr. Paynter was assisting the lady passengers to obtain lifebelts, of which there was a plentiful supply. He found his daughter packing, without knowledge of danger and handed her a belt. This the young lady, who is about twenty years of age, put on at once, as bidden. .....
Persistently refusing to leave her father, Miss Paynter and he went down together with the steamer. In the opinion of Miss Paynter, her father was struck as the ship foundered and rendered unconscious, for though he was a good swimmer and had told her just before she sank, to cling to him, he did not rise to the surface as she did, and Miss Paynter saw no more of her father alive.
His body was recovered from the sea afterwards, however, by the Royal Naval trawler H.M.S. Bluebell under the command of Captain John Thompson, landed at Queenstown, and taken to the temporary mortuary set up in the yard of the Cunard office at Lynch’s Quay. There, it was allocated the reference number 37, which indicates that it must have been one of the earliest to be landed in the harbour. Miss Paynter helped to identify it, there, accompanied by some friends. The fact that she actually saw her father's corpse may account for her later theory that he was hit on the head by wreckage. He was aged 63 years.
His body was shipped to Liverpool, on 9th May 1915, to his firm, Dobell & Co., who presumably effected the funeral arrangements in Birkenhead. The burial then took place on the afternoon of Tuesday 11th May 1915, in the churchyard of St. Oswald's, the Parish Church of Bidston, in Birkenhead. Several hundred people attended, including Mr. J.E. Rayner, who was The Lord Mayor of Liverpool, representatives of the Cunard Steam Ship Company and many local businesses.
Mr. Paynter's remains and those of his wife, Emily, and daughter, Violet, still lie there today, under a granite Celtic cross on a tiered square base. The pertinent inscription on the base states: -
To the loved Memory
of
CHARLES EDWIN PAYNTER,
WHO LOST HIS LIFE BY THE SINKING OF THE
R.M.S. LUSITANIA,
7TH MAY 1915, LAID TO REST HERE 11TH MAY,
AGED 63.
He is also commemorated on a plaque in the church at Amlwch, Anglesey, and on a bronze roll of honour dedicated to all the Freemasons from the Liverpool district who were killed in the Great War, at the Masonic Hall in Hope Street, Liverpool.
On 10th May 1915, J.E Rayner, in his official capacity as The Lord Mayor of Liverpool, wrote a letter of condolence to Irene Paynter which said: -
Will you allow me to offer my most sincere sympathy with you in the loss of your esteemed father. It is a source of great regret that he should be one of those to perish in this frightful disaster.
There is to be a Memorial Service at St. Peter’s Church on Thursday next. Perhaps you and members of your family, or friends, would like to attend, and if you will let me know I will send you tickets.
Bedroom Steward Dawes who had looked after Charles and Irene Paynter in their saloon rooms, also perished in the sinking.
Property recovered from Charles Paynter’s body was handed to fellow saloon passenger, and Liverpool businessman, Charles Bowring, at Queenstown, for eventual return to the family. However, some time after the sinking, it was realised that the gold watch that Charles Paynter had been wearing at the time of the sinking, was missing. Enquiries to The Cunard Steam Ship Company established that Captain Thompson of the Bluebell had been given a gold watch with an open face and a gold chain and locket and had handed it to Captain Turner in the presence of saloon passenger survivor George Kessler whilst still on board the naval vessel. Presumably it was returned to the family once its provenance had been established.
Administration of Charles Paynter’s estate was granted to Charles Owen Hughes, timber broker and Robert Norris, solicitor, at London on 12th October 1915, and his effects amounted to £30,153-1s-11d, (£30,153.11p).
As an extra poignancy to Charles Paynter's loss, 46 year old Liverpool and Birkenhead artist John Parsons committed suicide by coal-gas poisoning on 11th May, four days after the sinking. The Liverpool Echo for Wednesday 12th May 1915 reported on the suicide verdict of the coroner's court and stated: -
From conversations which witness had with him, it was evident that Mr. Parsons felt acutely the drowning of Mr. C.E. Paynter, one of the Lusitania victims who had been a generous patron and friend. Moreover, as a man fond of children, he took sadly to heart the drowning of so many infant passengers of the Lusitania.
As a further post script to Charles Paynter’s death, in late 1915, Second Lieutenant Alfred Temple Dobell of 1/6th Battalion of The King’s (Liverpool Regiment) wrote to his Brigade general, requesting that he be allowed to relinquish his commission and transfer to the Territorial Force Reserve, on the grounds that he had already been found unfit for further overseas military service and as a partner of Alfred Dobell & Sons since 1909, he was needed to help run the family firm.
Included in his letter was a paragraph which stated: -
At the time of the loss of the Lusitania, when our partner CE Painter was drowned, my father suggested to me that I should try and get leave from my military duties but that did not then feel justified. Recently I had the opportunity to discuss the matter with the older prominent Liverpool men and it was then, in view of my father's advancing years - he is 73 years of age, it was decided that it was my duty to try and get relieved, bearing in mind my physical condition. My younger brother is in the trenches with the 6 KLR for the second time having been wounded on 5/5/15.
His request was eventually granted in March 1917,
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, Anglesey Wales Anglican Church Baptisms, Marriages and Burials 1547 – 1994, 1861 Census of England & Wales, 1871 Census of England & Wales, 1881 Census of England & Wales, 1891 Census of England & Wales, 1901 Census of England & Wales, 1911 Census of England & Wales, New York Passenger Lists 1820 – 1957, Cunard Records, Birkenhead News (photo 12/05/1915, p.2, C.4), Liverpool Echo, North Wales Chronicle, Probate Records, PRO 22/71, PRO WO374/19981, UniLiv.D92/1/1, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Cuthill, Joe Devereux, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.