Joseph Mathewson was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, in the United States of America, on the 5th September 1914, the son of Joseph and Maud E.S. Mathewson (née Freeman). His father, who had emigrated from Scotland, was a machinist employed by the Bausch Machine Tool Company in Springfield, and his mother had immigrated from England.
In the spring of 1915, his mother decided to return to England and take baby Joseph with her - probably for a holiday - and consequently booked second cabin passage on the May sailing of the Lusitania from New York to Liverpool, which was scheduled to depart from the Cunard berth at Pier 54 at 10.00 a.m., on 1st May 1915.
Having left Springfield probably, at the end of April, son and mother boarded the liner in time for her scheduled 10.00 departure, but then had to wait until the early afternoon before she actually sailed. This was because she had to load cargo, passengers and some crew from the Anchor Lines vessel the S.S. Cameronia which the British Admiralty had requisitioned for use as a troop ship.
Then, six days out of New York, on the afternoon of 7th May, the Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-20, within sight of The Old Head of Kinsale in southern Ireland, only twelve or fourteen hours steaming time away from the safety of her home port.
Both Joseph Mathewson and his mother perished as a result of this action. It is possible that baby Joseph was in the second class nursery being fed when the torpedo struck, as it was the time of the second sitting for lunch and passengers were encouraged to take their children to the nursery to be fed at meal times. Virtually none of the babies in the nursery and none of their charges survived the sinking, probably as there were just not enough staff to cope with the emergency.
As neither Joseph’s nor his mother’s body was ever recovered from the sea and identified afterwards, neither has a known grave! Joseph Mathewson was only eight months old at the time he died!
Massachusetts U.S. Birth Records 1840 – 1915, Cunard Records, Springfield Massachusetts City Directory 1915, Boston Daily Globe, Coventry Standard, PRO BT 100/345, UniLiv D92/2/324, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.