Thomas Sandells was born in Garmston Shropshire, England, in 1862, the son of Thomas and Susan Sandells (née Hayward). His father was an agricultural labourer, and Thomas was the second eldest of seven known children in the family.
After completing his education, Thomas moved to Wolverhampton where he became an elementary school teacher, and then to London where he became a medical student. It is believed he gave up on his studies, became a clerk, and married a woman named Esther, who is believed to have been born in London, although no record of the marriage can be found.
The couple had two children – Thomas William, born in 1894, and Claude, born in 1897. Around 1900, the family immigrated to Canada where they settled in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
In the spring of 1915, Thomas decided to travel to England to visit his elderly widowed mother, and as a consequence, booked second cabin passage on the Lusitania from New York to Liverpool. Having left Winnipeg some time in April, he arrived at the Cunard berth at Pier 54 on the morning of 1st May 1915 in time to board her for her scheduled 10 o’clock sailing. This was then postponed until the early afternoon whilst the liner loaded cargo and took on board passengers and crew from Anchor Liner the S.S. Cameronia which the British Admiralty had requisitioned as a troop ship at the end of April.
Six days later, on the afternoon of 7th May, the Lusitania was torpedoed by the German submarine U-20, twelve miles off The Old Head of Kinsale in southern Ireland and sank only eighteen minutes later. At that stage of her voyage, she was a mere twelve or fourteen hours away from her Liverpool destination.
Thomas Sandells was fortunate enough to survive this action and later, fellow Winnipeg resident and second cabin survivor H. Allan Adams mentioned Mr. Sandells in an account of his own survival and it is possible that they both knew each other or had at least established common ground on the voyage across the Atlantic. Adams’ experiences, were published in the press and stated: -
After swimming a short distance he (Adams) found a collapsible boat to which 30 people were clinging. Captain Turner swam to the boat later and efforts were made by him and Mr. Adams and another passenger named Sandells to right the boat.
Thirty times, says Mr. Adams, attempts were made to right the boat but each
time it slipped back and gradually the people clinging to it disappeared.
It is not known how and when Thomas Sandells was rescued, but he was landed at Queenstown, from where he later took a train for Dublin and then a boat to Holyhead in Wales. After this, he took a train to Birkenhead Woodside Station, which was on the opposite side of the River Mersey from Liverpool and he finally arrived there in the early hours of 10th May. A Hansom Cab was waiting there for him, so either his ultimate destination was not far away, or the cab was to take him to another train. However, a cab had also been ordered for Mr. H. Allan Adams to take him to Liverpool, so as they would certainly have known each other well by that time, perhaps they shared it together. It is presumed that from there, Thomas Sandells eventually made it to his intended destination.
Thomas Sandells visit to his mother and other relatives was relatively short, for he boarded the Tuscania at Liverpool on the 12th June 1915 and returned to his home in Winnipeg.
On the 3rd December 1918, Thomas Sandells lodged a claim with the Canadian Commission seeking compensation for the loss of his money and personal belongings in the sinking of the Lusitania. His claim was for $1,000. Then, on the 23rd December 1921, he submitted an additional claim for personal injuries, stating that he had received a blow to his mouth sometime between when the liner had been torpedoed and when he was rescued, which had resulted in cancer of his tongue. As a result of this cancer, he was operated on at the General Hospital in Winnipeg, which ultimately proved unsuccessful, and he died at the hospital on the 9th March 1922. He was stated to have been aged 57 years at the time of his death, but was actually aged 59 years. He was buried in Elmwood Cemetery, Winnipeg.
In March 1926, the Canadian Commission decided on his case for compensation, and as doctors declined to state the cause of his cancer of the tongue was directly as a result of any injuries he received in the sinking of the Lusitania, they disallowed his case for personal injuries. They did, however, award his estate his full claim of $1,000 for the loss of his money and personal belongings as a result of the sinking.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, England Select Births and Christenings Manitoba Death Index 1871 – 1947, 1871 Census of England & Wales, 1881 Census of England & Wales, 1891 Census of England & Wales, 1906 Census of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, 1911 Census of Canada, New York Passenger Lists 1820 – 1957, Cunard Records, Canadian Claims Case No. 826, Cheshire Daily Echo, Winnipeg Tribune, UniLiv.D92/1/6, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.