John Vincent Mainman, always known as “Jack”, was born in Raglan, Victoria, Australia, in January 1894, the eldest child of Alfred Reid and Elizabeth Sarah “Bessie” Mainman (née Dowsett). His father was a butcher, who had emigrated from England to Australia in 1882. He had a younger brother named Alfred Shaw, known as “Alf”, who was born in 1895, and a younger sister, Mary Frances, known as “Mollie”, born in 1898.
In July 1904, the entire family sailed on the Persic from Australia to England, arriving on the 3rd August. Presumably, they spent time with his father’s family, but it’s unlikely that his father found any work, for in April 1906, the family immigrated to Canada.
They first went to Saskatchewan, but then moved to 10535, Jasper Avenue, Edmonton, Alberta. Although his father began his working life as a grocer, he later qualified as an accountant and was employed in this capacity by Edmonton City Council in the treasury department there. In 1907, his mother gave birth to twins – a boy named Edwin Richard, known as “Eddie”, and a girl named Elizabeth Sarah, known as “Bessie”.
In the spring of 1915, Jack’s grandparents in Exeter, Devonshire, England, had died and the family was requested to go there to wind up the family estate. Consequently, at the end of April 1915, all seven family members left Edmonton for New York where they joined the Cunarder Lusitania as second cabin passengers, at Pier 54, before she sailed for Liverpool on 1st May.
After the ship was torpedoed, exactly six days later, by the German submarine U-20, off the coast of southern Ireland, Jack Mainman, his parents, and his brother, Alf, were killed. Only the three young children from the family surviving. Jack Mainman was aged 21 years.
His body was the only one to be recovered from the sea and identified, however. After it was landed at Queenstown, it was taken to one of the temporary mortuaries there and given the reference number 118.
Once a positive identification had been made of it, however, it was buried on 13th May 1915 in The Old Church Cemetery, in Mass Grave B, 6th Row, Upper Tier.
On 5th June 1915, property recovered from his body was handed over to a Mr. Ellison of 2, Princes Avenue, Liverpool, Lancashire, on the instructions of Mr. W.L. Simpson, of Castle Place, Exeter, Devonshire, who was executor to John Mainman’s will. The property consisted of a gold watch and fob, some American and British silver coinage, a pair of gold sleeve links, a gold ring, a penknife, a piece of rubber, letters and papers and a Lusitania and an All Saints badge.
Mr. Ellison was probably a relative, as during the summer of 1915 the sum of £25-0s-0d was sent to a Mrs. Ellison at the Princess Avenue address, on behalf of the surviving children, by The Lusitania Relief Fund. This fund was set up after the sinking by The Lord Mayor of Liverpool and other local dignitaries, to alleviate financial loss and distress amongst those second cabin and third class passengers who had survived the sinking and the relatives of those who had not.
Australia Birth Index 1788 – 1922, 1911 Census of Canada, UK Incoming Passenger Lists 1878 – 1960, UK Outward Passenger Lists 1890 – 1960, Canadian Passenger Lists 1865 – 1935, Cunard Records, Edmonton Journal, The Age, Liverpool Record Office, PRO BT 100/345, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Lawrence Evans, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.