Frederick ‘Fred’ Charles Tyers was born in Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, England, in the summer of 1885, the son of Frederick William and Fanny Tyers (née Barker). In 1915, the family home was at ‘The Hollies’, 383, Mansfield Road, Carrington, Nottingham. Fred was the eldest of eight children and his father was a plumber.
On the 15th July 1902, he lied about his age and enlisted in the 4th Derbyshire Regiment, also known as the Sherwood Foresters Regiment in Derby, Derbyshire; however, he was “purchased out” for £1, two days later, presumably by his parents. On the 18th May 1904, he again enlisted in the British Army, this time in the Royal Horse & Royal Horse Artillery in Nottingham. Again, three days later, he was “purchased out”, this time for the sum of £10!
Frederick Tyers junior was a director of the family firm, The Portable Furnace and Patents Company Limited, of Oak Street, Carrington, and in March 1915, he had travelled to the United States of America on the Lusitania, arriving at New York on the 26th March. He was actually making for Bridgeport, Connecticut, to try and interest local industry there in a new cutting machine, which the company was developing. For his return home, he had booked second cabin passage on the May sailing of the Lusitania which was scheduled to leave New York for Liverpool at 10.00 a.m. on 1st May.
Having arrived at the Cunard berth at Pier 54 on the west side of the city, in time for her scheduled 10.00 a.m. depa
that it had been delayed until the early afternoon. This was because the Lusitania had to load cargo, and take on passengers and crew from the Anchor Liner the S.S. Cameronia, which had been requisitioned by the British Admiralty for war work as a troop ship, at the end of April.
At 12.27 p.m., the steamer finally slipped her moorings and sailed out into the North River and then into the Atlantic on what would become her last ever voyage. For 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, under the command of Kapitänleutnant Walther Schwieger.
Fred Tyers lost his life as a result of this action, although it was first thought that he had survived. Local newspaper The Nottingham Evening Post reported the tragic story in its edition of Monday 10th May 1915, when it stated: -
First came a message from the Cunard Company saying. “We understand Fred Tyers has been identified,” and next the police authorities at Queenstown wired “Your son’s body recovered, buried to-morrow (Monday).”
The shock occasioned to Mr. Tyers and the family by the receipt of these tragic messages was intensified by the fact that Mr. Fred Tyers had previously been reported among the rescued, another local survivor being under the impression that he had seen him in one of the boats. The circumstance that he was neither seen or heard of at Queenstown upon the arrival of the boat was disquieting, but the family hoped on.
Only this morning, Mr. Tyers received a number of letters and telegrams congratulating him upon the escape of his son, whilst most pathetic of all there arrived from the ill-fated young man himself, a picture postcard posted to his younger sister Miss Alice Tyers from Bridgeport Connecticut, immediately before he left for New York to join the Lusitania.
The message was obviously written in the highest spirits. It referred to the many places of interest which the writer had seen, and expressed the great enjoyment which he had derived from his trip. The heat was intense, the thermometer standing at 95 in the shade, hotter than at any period during the last 25 years at this particular season. “I could,” wrote Mr Tyers in concluding, “fill a book a foot thick with what I have seen.”
Having been recovered from the sea, his body had been taken to a temporary mortuary set up in the yard of the Cunard office at Lynch’s Quay and was first given the reference number 17.
After Frederick William Tyers had been contacted, he travelled to Queenstown to identify his son’s body and take charge of the property recovered from it.
The body was then sent, by sea and rail, exactly one week after the disaster, to Nottingham, for burial there. This took place on the afternoon of Monday 17th May, at Nottingham Church Cemetery in Mansfield Road, Nottingham. The committal service was conducted by The Reverend J. Braisford of New Radford, and there were many mourners present, including his parents, two brothers, five sisters (including the previously mentioned Alice Tyers) and many employees of the firm.
Fred Tyers’ body lies there to this day in grave 9190, although there is no inscription anywhere on the grave which identifies him or any of the members of his family who are also buried there. These include his father, who died in October 1948, aged 83 years, his mother, who died in late May or early June 1934, aged 68 years, his sister Fanny, who died in November 1961, aged 71 years, and a person named as Laura Tod, who was probably also a sister, who died in March 1985, aged 87 years.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths,1891 Census of England & Wales, 1901 Census of England & Wales, 1911 Census of England & Wales, New York Passenger Lists 1820 – 1957, Cunard Records, Nottingham Evening News, Nottingham Evening Post, PRO BT 100/345, UniLiv.PR13/6, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, D.W. Carnell, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.