Constance Ida Simpson was born in Wimbledon, London, England, on the 9th November 1883, the daughter of Charles and Alice Evelyn Simpson (née Donner). Her father was a silk merchant and a widower with a young daughter when he married Constance’s mother. The family home at the time of her birth was 74. Upper Tulse Hill, Wimbledon.
She was the eldest of two daughters, having a younger sister named Alice, and her older stepsister, Louise, he been born in Lyons, France.
It is unknown how she came to be in Mexico City, Mexico, but on the 19th August 1907, she married Edward Percy Wallace Stroud at Christ Church, Mexico City, and on the 3rd September, they married again in a civil ceremony at His Britannic Majesty’s Consulate in Mexico City! Her husband was a manager with the American Creamery Company in Mexico City, Mexico, and a qualified marine superintendent. Curiously, Constance began using “Eda” as her middle name from the time of her marriage.
Constance divided her time between Mexico City and London, and on the 19th March 1912, she gave birth to a daughter, named Helen Alice Wallace Stroud, at Westminster Hospital, London.
In May 1913, her husband returned to London, and on the 30th June, he filed for divorce from Constance on the grounds of adultery, claiming that Helen Alice Wallace Stroud was not his child, even though his name appeared on her birth certificate as being her father. Constance did not contest his claim and the divorce was granted on the 29th June 1914.
In July 1914, Constance and Helen Stroud departed from Tampico, Mexico, where her now, ex-husband, now employed as a marine superintendent with the Anglo Mexican Petroleum Products Company Limited, and travelled to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. From there, they travelled by rail to New York where they boarded the Aquitania to return to England. It is likely that Constance was hoping to reunite with Edward Stroud, for she returned with Helen to Mexico that October.
On the 13th March 1915, Constance and Helen departed from Mexico on the s.s. San Urbano, a tanker owned by the Eagle Oil & Shipping Company, which was partnered with Edward Stroud’s parent company. They were described as being crew members, probably because the vessel was a commercial oil tanker and not designed to carry passengers, and also because they might have been able to avail of free passage. They arrived in Philadelphia on the 21st March and continued by rail to New York City.
Edward Stroud also travelled to New York City, with the intention of returning to England to do his patriotic duty as an officer of the Royal Naval Reserve, but it is not known if he travelled with Constance and Helen from Tampico. What is known is that all three of them were booked as second cabin passengers on the May sailing of the Lusitania from New York to Liverpool.
They arrived at the Cunard berth at Pier 54 in New York on the morning of 1st May 1915 in time for the liner’s 10 o’clock sailing, but in company with all the other
passengers and crew, they had to wait until 12,27 p.m., before she actually slipped her moorings and began her journey into the Atlantic. This was caused because she had to wait to embark passengers, crew and cargo from the Anchor Lines vessel Cameronia which the British Admiralty had requisitioned for war service as a troop ship at the end of April.
Just six days later, on the afternoon of 7th May, the Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-20. At that point, she was off The Old Head of Kinsale in southern Ireland and only 250 miles hours away from the safety of her Liverpool home port and destination.
Although Constance and Edwin Stroud both survived the sinking, their daughter Helen was killed. Edwin Stroud later told a representative of County Cork newspaper The Southern Star what had happened: -
The sub. was seen by several and when the torpedo was launched there were gasps from everyone. People went dashing to find their loved ones. Afterwards there was no chance of us in the boats on (the) port side with the high list. When the ship dived my wife and I were washed off deck and flung among the wreckage and struggling people. It was then I lost my child as she was swept from my arms. We were in the sea for a terrible time clinging to wreckage before a steamer picked us up.
Having returned to London, it would appear that they finally went their separate ways, as Constance married Lieutenant Francis John Newton Dunne of the Royal Field Artillery in Wandsworth, London, on the 1st October 1915. On the 2nd October 1915, her husband left for the Western Front.
On the 15th April 1917, Constance gave birth to a son, named Terence Francis Dunne, in Colchester, Essex.
In late 1918, Captain Francis Dunne had been re-assigned to the Ministry for Food and in mid-November fell ill with influenza, probably one of those stricken down by the “Spanish Flu” epidemic. At 11p.m. on the 9th December, he died at his home in Kensington, London, where Constance had been nursing him. By 9a.m the following morning, 10th December 1918, Constance was also dead!
On the 13th December, a Coroners Enquiry into Constance Dunne’s death was held in Kensington. It was stated in evidence that while nursing her husband, she had not eaten anything for six days. After her husband had died, she asked for some brandy and sat on the stairs in the dark, where she was later found in a coma. Dr. Jewesbury, a pathologist at Charing Cross Hospital performed an autopsy on her remains and determined that she had taken a narcotic, but not necessarily to take her own life. A verdict of death was due to poisoning was returned. Constance Dunne was aged 31 years.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, London England Church of England Births and Baptisms 1813 – 1920, England & Wales Civil Divorce Records 1858 – 1918, 1891 Census of England & Wales, 1901 Census of England & Wales, Texas Passenger Lists 1893 – 1963, New York Passenger Lists 1820 – 1957, Pennsylvania Passenger & Crew Lists 1800 – 1962, UK Incoming Passenger Lists 1878 – 1960, Cunard Records, Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Bedfordshire Times and Independent, Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail, The Southern Star, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.