John Thomas Matthews, always known as ‘Thomas’ Matthews, was born on the 6th November 1887, in the parish of St. Winnow, Lostwithiel, Cornwall, England, the son of John Clemens and Eliza Matthews (née Prior). His father was an agricultural labourer, and his parents married in 1881. It was his mother’s second marriage as she had previously been married in 1876 to man named William Henry Oliver, who had died in 1877, leaving his young widow with a son. Thomas was one of nine children.
Thomas Matthews was educated at Bridgend School, Lostwithiel, and after this, became a slaughter man for a local butcher. In 1908, he married Ellen Martin, from Holmbush, St. Austell, Cornwall, and they had one son, John Howard, who was born in January 1909.
Thomas' brother, Harry, and some of his brothers-in-law, had immigrated to Calumet, Michigan, in the United States of America, and in August 1913, Thomas joined them to work in the copper mines there. When war broke out, however, he decided, with one of his brothers-in-law, Arthur Martin, to return to Britain, and the two set off for New York. Once there, however, and actually on the dock-side, Arthur decided not to travel after all and Thomas Matthews boarded the Lusitania alone, as a third class passenger. The liner sailed for her last ever trans-Atlantic crossing just after mid-day on 1st May 1915.
Exactly six days later, the liner was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-20 within sight of the coast of southern Ireland and only hours away from her Liverpool destination and home port. Thomas Matthews was forced to jump into the sea, but because of his Cornish origins, he was able to swim until rescued, during which time he helped to save at least two other lives, before being was rescued and landed at Queenstown.
Eventually, on the evening of Sunday 9th May he returned home to his family in Lostwithiel, where he gave an account of his experiences to the local press, which was published in The West Briton and Cornwall Advertiser, on Thursday 13th May. In it, he stated: -
It was just after dinner when I heard the torpedo crash into the Lusitania. I had retired to my bunk to tidy up a bit, and without waiting for anything, I rushed up on deck.
It was with difficulty I got there as the gangways were full of frightened passengers and it was apparent from the list and the fact that the bows were already down in the water, that the ship was sinking.
When we got up I climbed over onto the first class boat deck and saw them trying to launch the boats. The first boat I saw launched broke right in two. When the next boat was launched, I did not stop any longer, but jumped for it a distance of 15 or 20 feet, and managed to get into the boat with forty or fifty others; but the trouble was not then at an end. The boat nearly filled with water and four times she nearly capsized. Ten or a dozen of the people were drowned in this way, but I was one of those who could swim, and managed to cling to the boat when she was bottom up, or remain in her up to the waist in water when she righted. When the boat capsized those of us who could swim had to keep the others afloat. At one time I had as many as four on my back. We managed to save two ladies. I saw two other boats bottom up.
Many of those who got into the boats were in a fearful state. Some of them were injured. I saw one man with an arm only hanging by a ligament. Several were full of salt water and almost in a near state of collapse. I should think that the Lusitania went down in a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes. She sank five minutes after I jumped from the deck. When the boilers exploded we were covered in smoke and soot, and I hurt my hand; I think it must have been against one of the funnels.
It was a quarter past six before we were picked up by a trawler or a mine sweeper. There was still a great number on the Lusitania when she went down, but a good many of them, I believe, were picked up by other boats and steamers. If they had only given us time to save the ladies and the little children, we might have looked after ourselves. As it was, it was an awful experience. I never want to see the like of it again. One of the ladies said she saw the submarine come to the surface after the boat was struck, but I saw nothing of it. Nor did I see the Lusitania take a pilot on
board, though I thought she had slowed down a little. I was coming home from Michigan in the States, having a wife and child at Lostwithiel.
Quite a few people who were rescued from an upturned boat remember a fellow survivor who had an arm hanging on by a slender piece of flesh. It is more than likely that this is the same person, a seaman, whom Thomas Matthews saw. The others who described this man were later picked up by the Greek steamer Katerina, however, inward bound with a cargo of sugar from the West Indies, and not a trawler or a mine sweeper, as described by Mr. Thomas. Perhaps there were two such unfortunate men injured as a result of the sinking!
According to his family, Thomas enlisted in the British Army, surviving the War; however, no details of his military service are known.
Thomas Matthews was subsequently awarded £26-0s-0d. compensation by The Cunard Steamship Company, for the loss of all his possessions. He then opened up his own family butcher's business at 9, Quay Street, Lostwithiel - called T. Matthews & Son - which he later ran with his son, Howard, until ill health forced his retirement in 1957, at the age of 70 years.
Throughout his life, he rarely mentioned his ordeal, although at infrequent intervals, he would venture to say to his two granddaughters: -
Granddad was a survivor of the Lusitania disaster.
It was in his Quay Street home that he died suddenly and peacefully, sitting in his favourite kitchen armchair, on the morning of 25th May 1962, aged 75 years.
He was buried in Lostwithiel Cemetery, Castle Hill, Lostwithiel. His wife Ellen having predeceased him in 1949.
The inscription on the headstone does not mention his Lusitania connection, but merely states: -
IN
LOVING MEMORY OF
ELLEN MATTHEWS
1888 - 1949
AND HER HUSBAND
JOHN THOMAS MATTHEWS
1887 - 1962
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, 1891 Census of England & Wales, 1901 Census of England & Wales, 1911 Census of England & Wales, 1939 Register, New York Passenger Lists 1820 – 1957, Cunard Records, The West Briton & Cornwall Advertiser, Graham Maddocks, Gillian Parsons, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.