Edgar Palmer was born in Bordesley Green, Warwickshire, England, in late 1908, the son of Albert and Frances Annie Palmer (née Oakes). His father was a fitter in a gun factory.
By 1911, the family was residing at 2. Oliver Street, Coventry, Warwickshire, and in the summer of 1911, his sister, Olive, was born.
In October 1911, his father immigrated to Canada when he boarded the Corsican at Liverpool and sailed to Quebec, Canada. From there, he travelled overland to Toronto, Ontario, where he found employment as a millwright. As soon as he had established himself in Toronto, he sent for his family.
In May 1912, his mother, Edgar, and his sister, joined him in Toronto, where they lived at 9. Earlsdale Avenue, in the city. His brother, Albert, was born in Toronto on the 28th February 1915.
In the spring of 1915, the family decided to return to Staffordshire and having left Toronto some time in April, they arrived in New York in time for the Lusitania’s morning sailing on 1st May 1915. This was then delayed until the early afternoon as
she had to embark passengers, some crew and cargo from the Anchor Lines ship Cameronia, which the British Admiralty had requisitioned for use as a troop ship at the end of April. The family had what would become its last ever glimpse of New York when the Lusitania left there just after noon as second cabin passengers and just six days later, on the afternoon of 7th May, it was wiped out, when the liner was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-20. At that stage of its voyage, the liner was steaming past The Old Head of Kinsale in southern Ireland and only about 250 miles away from her home port and destination of Liverpool.
Edgar Palmer was only six years old when he was killed and although the bodies of his father and sister were never recovered and identified, his body and those of his mother and brother Albert were, washed up at Schull, County Cork, about 50 miles around the coast from the liner had foundered.
Having been recovered, it was transported to Queenstown, taken to one of the temporary mortuaries set up there, given the reference number 184 and described as: -
Boy 7 years. 3’ 72 Light blue eyes, light brown hair, blue jacket fastened with white bone buttons, woollen singlet fastened with white pearl buttons, woollen drawers similarly fastened, short brown cloth breeches, black stockings, elastic garter, piece of string, black laced boots and Lusitania pin on jacket. No property.
As it was necessary to bury all the recovered bodies as soon as possible, because they could not be hygienically stored in the increasing heat of May, they were all photographed in the temporary mortuaries in Queenstown before being buried as soon as was practicable. Anxious friends and relatives of those missing were then invited to identify their loved ones through these photographs.
Eventually, Edgar Palmer’s body was identified from the photograph taken of corpse number 184, by his grandmother, Mrs. Oakes, of 147, Windmill Lane, Smethwick, Staffordshire. By this time, he had already been buried in Mass Grave B, 5th Row, Upper Tier, in The Old Church Cemetery, Queenstown
The bodies of his mother and infant brother were buried in the same mass grave on the same day - 15th May 1915.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, 1911 Census of England & wales, Canadian Passenger Lists 1865 – 1935, Cunard Records, Lusitania, UniLiv.D92/8112, UniLiv. PR13/6, UniLiv D92/2/139, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.