Rene Joseph Philibert Marichal was born at Scey-Sur-Saône-et-Saint-Albin, in the Haute-Saône Département of France, on the 10th February 1877. Nothing is known of his family or childhood years, but following secondary education, he studied European languages at the Sorbonne in Paris, after which, in 1902, he was drafted into the French Army as a sous-lieutenant, stationed at Lille.
It was probably whilst there that he met his future wife, Jessie Irene Emerson, who was a British subject. Joseph Marichal, the form of his name he was known by, on one occasion forged a weekend pass to be with Jessie, and then, on a later occasion, travelled to her home in England in the early summer of 1908, where they couple married in West Bromwich, Staffordshire. On his return to France, he was summoned
to a military tribunal by his authorities and invited to resign his commission for forging the weekend pass, and getting married without the permission of his regimental colonel.
The couple returned to England, and settled at “Roncavaux”, Stornoway Road, Southend-on-Sea, Essex. Joseph had secured a position as a language teacher at a local secondary school in the area.
While living in Southend-on-Sea, the couple had three children – Yvonne Jessie, born in 1909, Maurice, born in 1910, and Phyllis, born in 1913.
In 1913, the Marichal’s immigrated to Canada, where Joseph Marichal obtained the position of Professor of Romance Languages at Queen’s University, in Kingston, Ontario. In April 1915, however, he accepted an appointment at Birmingham University, in Warwickshire, England, and consequently, booked second cabin passage for the entire family on the May sailing of the Lusitania, from New York to Liverpool. At this time, his wife Jessie was pregnant with their fourth child.
All five family members boarded the liner on the morning of 1st May 1915 and probably waved goodbye to New York harbour as the vessel left there, for the very last time, just before 12.30p.m.. Amazingly, all of them survived, when she was torpedoed and sunk, six days later, by the German submarine U-20, within sight of the southern coast of Ireland. This probably means that they managed to get into one of the lifeboats which was successfully launched. Yvette Marichal was later to state that her parents had insisted that all three of their children dine in the restaurant with them rather than in the nursery, and that consequently, they were all together when the liner was struck! Jessie Marichal did miscarry, afterwards, however, as a result of her ordeal.
Having been rescued from the sea, they were all landed at Queenstown, from where they eventually managed to get to Birmingham.
Once there, they successfully applied to The Lusitania Relief Fund for financial assistance to help make up for the loss of all their property. The fund, administered by The Lord Mayor of Liverpool and other local business dignitaries, had been set up to help second and third class passengers who had suffered financial loss as a result of the sinking, and on 1st June 1915, its trustees awarded them the sum of £9-13s-6d., (£9. 67½p.), in order to pay a doctor’s bill - which was probably connected with Jessie‘s pregnancy. A document which still survives in the archive of The Liverpool Record Office makes the curious remark against this award payment: -
Lecturer at University (unsatisfactory case)
The Fund's cheque was sent to the family at 21, Hampstead Road, Handsworth, Birmingham, Warwickshire, which was obviously their new address.
If Joseph Marichal did not play a significant part in the sinking of the Lusitania, he certainly made his mark on its aftermath!
Having arrived in Birmingham after the sinking with no money, all the family’s belongings lost, and his wife recently having miscarried, he wrote letters to various sources, including the Board of Trade and the French Quai d’Orsay. He claimed that
the Lusitania was carrying ammunition and it was this, exploded by a single torpedo hit, which had sunk the vessel so rapidly! Furthermore, his letter to The Cunard Steam Ship Company claimed £1,000-0s-0d for his losses with the veiled threat that should the company not acquiesce to his request, he would make the whole matter of his accusations public! He also stated that after the torpedo strike, he had heard the explosion of small arms ammunition in a forward hold - a sound with which he was familiar from his service in the French Army!
By the end of June 1915, the Mersey enquiry into the sinking had reached the convenient conclusion that the ship was sunk by two torpedoes and that the British Government bore no blame at all, for her loss. Marichal’s allegations were such that Lord Mersey was persuaded to re-open the enquiry to hear his evidence. This took place on 1st July and Marichal reiterated his allegations, adding that the British Admiralty was also to blame for the Lusitania’s loss, because it had failed to provide Royal Naval escorts to protect her!
This, and the other allegations were probably too close to the truth for comfort and Lord Mersey chose to attack the credibility of the new witness, by challenging his motives - claiming that he was really only interested in blackmailing the Cunard Company for profit and actually calling him a liar, when he refuted these claims! The London newspaper The Times took up the same attack the following day, neatly assassinating Marichal’s character.
Marichal replied with understandable anger to this unfair treatment, challenging Lord Mersey to take legal action against him for perjury, should he be able to prove that his allegations of Marichal’s lying were correct. It was obvious, however, that Marichal’s version of events would not be allowed to become accepted in the minds of the British or even French public, for not long afterwards, the British Embassy in Paris made public disparaging and falsified evidence about the professor’s military career and subsequent life, which was calculated to further blacken his name!
This virtually ended the Marichal affair, and with the war moving on and the British Government’s need to use the sinking of the Lusitania to its best propaganda effect, it was not expedient to allow Marichal’s account to continue - even if it was probably nearer to the truth than the official findings of the enquiry!
Thus, the Marichal family never did receive official compensation for their losses and the publicity surrounding the affair might account for why the Lusitania Relief Fund had commented (unsatisfactory case) on the Marichal family‘s claim!
Author Colin Simpson, who covers the whole affair extremely well in his 1972 book, simply entitled Lusitania, further states that: -
Professor Marichal never received any compensation and was killed in action in 1917, while serving as a private soldier in the East Yorkshire Regiment.
In point of fact, this is not correct, as there was no soldier of this name killed whilst serving in The East Yorkshire Regiment or any other unit of the British Army in the Great War.
Marichal actually returned to France and re-joined the French Army, which makes far more sense considering his earlier military service! However, as Soldat 2ème Classe J.P. Marichal of the 44ème Regiment d’Infanterie, he was killed in action on the 12th August 1916, at Bois du Hem, on the Somme front. His body was recovered from the wood, however and he is buried in the Nécropole Nationale at Maurepas, in grave 2098, about three miles from where he fell. He was aged 39 years at the time. The 44ème Regiment d’Infanterie suffered many casualties fighting the Germans on that day!
The idea that he was killed whilst serving in the British Army still persisted into the 21st Century, however, for on the death of his eldest daughter, Yvonne, in September 2001, British newspaper The Times reported: -
Mr. Marichal, who enlisted in the Army, was killed in France on May 7th 1916, the first anniversary of the disaster.
This is clearly not true, and the accuracy of an account concerning his survival from the Lusitania, in the same article, must also be treated with scepticism, as The Times similarly relates: -
Mr. Marichal helped his family into a fishing boat but the rescuers were able to take only the women and children. He dived into the sea and swam alongside the boat to shore.
It would hardly seem likely that having survived the ordeal of the sinking, a man of 38 years of age would be capable of swimming some ten to twelve miles in the Irish Sea, in May, from the point of the sinking to the safety of a harbour!
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, 1911 Census of England & Wales, UK Outward Passenger Lists 1890 – 1960, Cunard Records, Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Liverpool Record Office, Ministère de la Défense, République Française, The Times, Lusitania, PRO BT 100/345, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.