Stanley Robert Taylor was born in Coventry, Warwickshire, England, on the 11th August 1899, the only son of Robert and Annie Sarah Taylor (née Johnson). Although his parents had emigrated from Coventry in 1893 and 1894, his mother had returned to Coventry for his birth.
His father was a wood turner, but later worked as a laundry man, and in 1915, the family home was at 20. West Cottage Street, Roxbury, Massachusetts.
On the 25th February 1915, his father died tragically when he accidentally fell out of a window and suffered fatal head injuries. Shortly after this event, his mother decided to return to Coventry with Stanley.
Consequently, she booked them as second cabin passengers on the Lusitania. They boarded the vessel before she left New York just after mid-day on 1st May 1915.
This sailing was postponed from her scheduled 10.00 a.m. one, because she had to embark passengers, crew and cargo from the Anchor Liner Cameronia, which had been requisitioned by the British Admiralty for war service as a troop ship, at the end of April.
Exactly six days later, on 7th May, the Cunarder was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-20. At that point, she steaming past The Old Head of Kinsale in southern Ireland and was only 250 miles away from her Liverpool home port and destination. When the ship was torpedoed, mother and son became separated and although Stanley Taylor survived, his mother was killed. Stanley was aged 15 years at the time.
His mother’s body was eventually discovered in the sea under an upturned lifeboat and on 17th May 1915, was sent to Birmingham for burial. Presumably Stanley Taylor was present at the funeral, as he had been sent to his maternal grandparents from Queenstown, arriving in Coventry on 10th May.
Having been raised by relatives, Stanley became a railway porter and moved to
Birmingham, Warwickshire. On the 17th April 1926, he married Hilda Kate Morrissey at the parish Church of St. Thomas, Birmingham. The couple resided at 102. Lowbrook Lane, Tidbury Green, Solihull. They had no children.
Stanley Taylor died on the 15th October 1973, aged 74 years. He left an estate of £7,700. His wife had pre-deceased him by a few months.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, Massachusetts U.S. Death Records 1841 – 1915, Birmingham England Church of England Marriages and Banns 1754 – 1937, 1901 Census of England & Wales, 1939 Register, New York Passenger Lists 1820 – 1957, Massachusetts Passenger Lists 1820 – 1963, Cunard Records, Southern Star, Probate Records, UniLiv D92/2/302, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.