Frederic Warren Pearl, usually known as Warren Pearl, was born in Bradford, Haverhill, Massachusetts, in the United States of America, on 26th August 1868, the son of Peter Everett and Fidelia “Delia” Jane Pearl, (née Day). His father, who was a shoe manufacturer, died when Warren was only eight years old. He was the younger of two children, having an older brother – George. After primary education, he studied medicine and eventually qualified as a surgeon. During the Spanish-American War of 1898, he served as a surgeon-major in the United States Army - thereafter retaining the title of Major.
On the 15th April 1909, he married Amy Lea Duncan of New York City, N.Y. and by 1915, they had four children, Stuart Duncan Day, born in 1910, Amy Whitewright Warren, born in 1912, Susan Whitewright, born in 1914, and Audrey Warren, born in 1915.
Their principle address was at 20. Lowndes Square, London, but they also maintained a home at 375, West End Avenue, New York City. From early 1914, the family had spent most of its time travelling abroad. In fact, the third child, Susan, was born in London, England, in 1914, and local girl, Alice Lines, was engaged to act as nurse to the three children.
On the outbreak of the Great War in August 1914, the family party was in Stockholm, Sweden, and Warren Pearl managed to obtain clearance to travel to Petrograd, Russia, intending to offer his military experience to the Imperial Russian Army, but when the war in northern Europe intensified, he decided, instead, to remain for a while, in Denmark and booked the family into a hotel in the seaport of Skagen.
Whilst there, Major Pearl took the opportunity to travel to England to enter his son Stuart’s name on the roll for future entry into Eton School and he decided to return to Skagen via Belgium and Germany, thinking his neutral status would protect him! However, whilst in Lübeck in northern Germany, he was arrested by two German officers who assumed that he was an English spy!
His wife, waiting for him in the hotel in Skagen had no idea what had happened to him, until eventually she received a telegram dictated from his prison cell in Lübeck, summoning her to help him! She too was arrested on her arrival in the city, however,
and eventually enlisting the help of the United States Consul, she was allowed to leave and return to Denmark, where she reported the situation to the United States Ambassador to Denmark. It was only after a further two weeks of imprisonment, which did not improve Warren Pearl’s love of the Germans, that he was finally released and put on a steamer bound for Copenhagen, where he was eventually re-united with his family!
By this time, Mrs. Pearl was expecting her fourth child, and as she wanted it to be born in America, she decided to return home to New York. Alice Lines had already engaged a Danish girl, Greta Lorenson, to help look after the three existing children and the family set out for New York on a German ship, the Frederik VIII - Miss Lines posing as an American citizen to avoid any problems with the German authorities.
After their return, their fourth child, Audrey was born in February 1915, and with this hurdle out of the way and anxious still, to be involved in the war, Warren Pearl and his wife made plans to return to Europe. He had to report to the United States Embassy in London, and he intended to join the Depage Hospital, at La Panne, in Belgium, set up by Belgian surgeon Antoine Depage and his wife Marie, to treat wounded Belgian soldiers.
Consequently, they booked saloon class passage for their whole party on the Lusitania, which was due to leave New York on the morning of 1st May 1915. At that time, Warren Pearl was also president of The Pearson Engineering Company of New York and its owner and founder, Frederick Stark Pearson, had also booked to travel as a saloon passenger on the Lusitania along with his wife. Another of the saloon passengers on board was none other than Marie Depage!
Once on board, Warren Pearl and his wife occupied suite E51, one of the ship’s main suites, under the personal supervision of First Class Bedroom Steward Vincent Settle, who came from Anfield, a suburb of Liverpool. Greta Lorenson took Stuart and Audrey Pearl into room E67, whilst Alice Lines took Amy and Susan into room E59 with her. The ticket for the whole family group was numbered 46071.
Despite the obvious alarms and threats which dogged everyone on the Lusitania’s last voyage, Warren Pearl and his wife shared the opulence of the facilities enjoyed by all saloon passengers on the crossing.
Then, six days out of New York, on the afternoon of 7th May 1915, the Lusitania was torpedoed by the German submarine U-20, under the command of Kapitänleutnant Walther Schwieger’s, whilst she was within sight of the coast of southern Ireland. When they heard the explosion, Warren Pearl and his wife had made frantic efforts to locate their four children, both separately and together. Major Pearl had witnessed the chaos of the badly lowered lifeboats and all the horrors that this brought and was still searching for his children, having been once more separated from his wife, when the Lusitania took her final plunge, after which he was pitched into the sea.
After some considerable time in the water, he was picked up by a ship which was apparently the Greek steamer Katerina bound from Havana, Cuba, with a cargo of sugar. In point of fact, however, she was the British steamer Westborough, whose master had deliberately disguised her as a Greek merchant ship, even flying a Greek
flag, in the hope that German U-Boats would respect her supposed neutral status!
Major Pearl was eventually landed at Queenstown, where he was eventually re-united with his wife, who had also been rescued from the sea and taken to the home of the Vice Admiral of the naval base there, where she was nursed back to health.
Warren Pearl then began a relentless search of the mortuaries, hospitals, boarding houses and hotels in the area for any news of his family. Eventually, he heard of a nurse being quartered nearby who seemed to answer Alice Lines’ description and although after midnight, he hurried round there. The nurse was, indeed, Alice Lines, and Major Pearl was overjoyed to discover that she had Stuart and Audrey Pearl with her.
In the following days, he and Nurse Lines scoured the mortuaries scrutinising all the recovered bodies, but nothing more was ever seen or heard of little Amy, Susan, or Greta Lorenson, their nurse. It appeared that they had managed to get into a lifeboat which had then pitched its occupants into the sea, where they must have been fatally injured or drowned.
Bedroom Steward Vincent Settle who had looked after Warren Pearl and his wife in room E51 did survive the sinking, however, and eventually made it back to his Anfield home, although Fred Stark Pearson and his wife Mabel perished. Marie Depage, who had probably inspired the Pearl family to travel to Europe in the first place, also died as a result of the torpedoing of the ship!
When the Mersey Enquiry into the sinking convened in London on 15th June 1915, Major Pearl, accompanied by his wife and Alice Lines attended as survivors, but took no part in the official proceedings.
He eventually joined Antoine Depage at his hospital at La Panne and became the head of the American Red Cross in Europe. For the remainder of the war he undertook work on behalf of the U.S. Government in the field of sanitary health and spent the majority of his time afterwards in Great Britain.
Some time after their terrible experience, Frederic and Amy Pearl filed a claim for damages, which was decided by the umpire of the Mixed Claims Commission, Edwin B. Parker, on the 21st February 1924. He awarded the couple their full claim of $11,000.00, and in addition awarded Frederic Pearl the sum of $19,714.00 which was the total amount he claimed for the loss of their personal and household belongings which he claimed were lost when the great liner sank.
In the years that followed, Frederic and Amy Pearl had three more children – two sons, Vivian Whitewright Warren, born in 1916, and Warren Whitewright Duncan, born in 1921, and a daughter, who they named Amy Susan Pearl in remembrance of their two daughters lost on the Lusitania, who was born in 1922.
The family continued to reside at 20. Lowndes Square, Belgravia, London, and Frederic Pearl was attached to the U.S. Embassy in London as a U.S. Public Health Surgeon until his retirement.
On the 26th March 1943, his son, 123448 Pilot Officer Warren Whitewright Duncan pearl was killed, aged 22 years, when his aircraft, a Miles Master, crashed at Weston-on-the-Green, Oxfordshire, England. He was serving with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, 2nd Glider Training School, at the time.
Frederic Warren Pearl died at his home, 20. Lowndes Square, on the 2nd January 1952, aged 83 years, of acute myeloid leukaemia, and after his remains were cremated at Golders Green Crematorium, his ashes were placed in Brookwood Cemetery, Surrey, where they lie today.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, Massachusetts U.S. Birth Records 1840 – 1915, U.S. Reports of Deaths of American Citizens Abroad 1835 – 1974, New York U.S. Extracted Marriage Index 1866 – 1937, 1870 U.S. Federal Census, 1880 U.S. Federal Census, 1910 U.S. Federal Census, 1930 U.S. Federal Census, 1939 Register, U.S. Passport Applications 1795 – 1925, U.S. Consular Registration Certificates 1907 – 1918, Massachusetts Passenger Lists 1820 – 1963, New York Passenger Lists 1820 – 1957, Cunard Records, U.S. Adjutant General Military Records 1631 – 1976, Mixed Claims Commission Docket No. 244, New York Times, Seven Days to Disaster, PRO 22/71, PRO BT 100/345, UniLiv D92/2/251, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Audrey Lawson Johnston, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.