Beatrice Frances Abas was born at 23. Richmond Place, Brighton, England, on the 19th October 1912, the second child of Phillippe and Beatrice Eleanor Abas. Her father was a renowned professional musician, a classical cellist, who often played abroad.
In April 1915, Beatrice Abas senior was pregnant with a third child and as the family was then staying in New York where her father was performing, it was decided that they should return to England until the baby was born, leaving Phillippe Abas there.
Consequently, Mrs. Abas and her two children took second cabin passage on the
Lusitania, which sailed from New York just after noon on 1st May. Six days later, all three were killed, after the liner was torpedoed by the German submarine U-20. At that stage in her voyage, the
Lusitania was steaming past The Old Head of Kinsale in southern Ireland and only hours away from her Liverpool home port.
None of their bodies was ever recovered and identified afterwards. Beatrice Frances Abas was aged only two years.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, 1911 Census of England & Wales, New York Passenger Lists 1820 - 1957, Cunard Records, Brighton Herald, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, PRO BT 100/345, UniLiv D92/2/356, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly