Thomas Hugh Thompson McAfee was born in his family home at 251. Shankill Road, Belfast, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, on the 30th September 1886, the son of William and Mary Ann McAfee (née Thompson). His father worked in one of the local linen mills in the area. His father died in 1891, and Thomas and his siblings were raised by a maternal aunt.
In 1915, the family home was at 42, Summer Street, Belfast, County Antrim, Northern Ireland.
In March 1913, he had immigrated to Canada, by travelling from Liverpool to Halifax, Nova Scotia, on board the Teutonic. On arrival in Canada he declared that he was a draper, and that he intended to travel to Toronto, Ontario.
Then, in the spring of 1915, he decided to return home to Belfast for a short holiday, before enlisting in the British Army. He booked third class passage on the Lusitania. His ticket was numbered 37487. The Cunarder then sailed from New York, just after mid-day on 1st May 1915 after a delayed start, as she had to embark passengers, some of the crew, and the cargo from the S.S. Cameronia. This Anchor Lines vessel had been requisitioned by the British Admiralty as a troop ship.
Thomas intended to travel on an earlier sailing, but waited for his friend, and fellow Belfast man, Robert McCready, so that they could travel together.
When the Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk, six days later on the afternoon of 7th May, by the German submarine U-20 off the coast of southern Ireland and just hours from her Liverpool destination, Thomas McAfee was one of the many third class passengers who were killed. Robert McCready also perished.
As his body was never found and identified afterwards, he has no known grave. He was aged 28 years.
However, soon after the sinking, a pocket book was handed in at the Cunard office in Queenstown, which had been found floating in the sea, bearing Thomas McAfee's name and address in Summer Street. It contained dollar bills to the total of $18 and a 10/- (£0.50p.) British Treasury note, as well as letters and papers, one of which was a certificate under the Education Act of 1893 awarded to Thomas McAfee, then aged thirteen years. It was eventually forwarded to one of his sisters, Miss S. McAfee, at the Summer Street address, on 30th August 1915.
In the early summer of 1915, his sisters, another of whom was a Mrs. L. Thompson, applied to the Lusitania Relief Fund for financial help. This fund had been set up
immediately after the sinking by The Lord Mayor of Liverpool and other local businessmen, to offer monetary help to second and third class passengers (or their dependants, had they been killed), who had suffered loss or hardship as a result of the sinking. It was assumed that saloon passengers would not need this assistance.
As Thomas McAfee's family had already received an insurance pay-out of £11-16s-6d., (£11.82½p.), the fund awards committee delayed making a payment immediately, so that further enquiries could be made as to the family financial status.
£11-16s-6d., would have equated with about two months pay for a fireman or a trimmer on the Lusitania at that time.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, 1901 Census of Ireland, 1911 Census of Ireland, UK Outward Passenger Lists 1890 – 1960, Canadian Passenger Lists 1865 – 1935, Cunard Records, Liverpool Record Office, Irish Post and Weekly Telegraph, PRO BT 100/345, UniLiv.D92/1/8-10, UniLiv D92/2/426, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.