John Warren Thurston was born in Wymondham, Norfolk, England, in December 1890, the son of John Tomcett and Ada Louisa Thurston (née Gladden) of Forncett St. Peter, near Wymondham, Norfolk. His father was a farmer.
His younger brother, Lewis, was born in 1892, but both his mother and Lewis died shortly after the birth. His father later re-married.
On completing his education, John became a farmer, like his father, and in 1910, he immigrated to Canada. It is thought he remained in Canada until 1913, when he moved south to California in the United States of America.
In 1914, he returned to Norfolk to visit his family and enlist in the British Army. He was rejected for military service due to ill-health and in late December, he boarded the Arabic, arriving in New York City on the 4th January 1915.
He proceeded to Bridgeport, Connecticut, where he found work on a farm in nearby Trumbull, but was taken ill with a pulmonary condition almost immediately and was confined to Bridgeport Hospital until the end of April. Immediately on being released from hospital, he decided to return to Norfolk and booked second cabin passage on the May sailing of the Lusitania from New York with S. Low & Company, Bridgeport, the local Cunard booking agents.
He arrived at the Cunard berth at Pier 54 in New York harbour on the morning of her sailing on the 1st May, only to have his departure delayed until the early afternoon. This was because the Lusitania had to take on cargo, passengers and some crew from the Cameronia, which had been requisitioned by the British Admiralty for war work.
At 12.27 p.m., the steamer slipped her moorings and sailed out into the North River and then into the Atlantic. Just six days later, on the afternoon of the 7th May, she was torpedoed and sunk within sight of the southern Irish coast and only hours away from her home port, by the German submarine U-20.
John Thurston was one of the many second cabin passengers who lost his life in the sinking and as his body was never recovered from the sea and identified afterwards, he has no known grave. He was aged 24 years.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, 1891 Census of England & Wales, 1901 Census of England & Wales, Canadian Passenger Lists 1865 – 1935, New York Passenger Lists 1820 – 1957, Cunard Records, Liverpool Records Office, Bridgeport Times and Evening Farmer, Norwich Mercury, PRO BT 100/345, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Dick Rayner, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.