William Henry Parkes was born in Ladywood, Birmingham, Warwickshire, England, on the 24th January 1892, the son of William Henry and Caroline Parkes (née Smith). His father was a brass tube drawer in a local brass factory. William was the fourth eldest of ten children in the family.
On leaving school, William went to work in a brass factory, as did many of his siblings, and then, late 1911 or early 1912, he immigrated to Canada, settling in
Toronto, Ontario, where he found work in a crystal factory.
On the 14th May 1913, he married Amy Miles in Toronto, and the couple had one child, a son named Leslie William, born in 1913.
In the spring of 1915, he decided to return to England to enlist in the British Army, his wife and son having travelled to England in September 1914.
As a result, he bought a ticket on the May sailing of the Lusitania - numbered 33613 - as a third class passenger, and at the end of April 1915, he left for New York to join the liner at the Cunard berth there, for her delayed sailing in the early afternoon of 1st May.
When the liner was torpedoed and sunk, just six days out of New York and within hours of her destination at Liverpool, although William Parkes managed to survive, his health was impaired as a result.
Having been recovered from the sea and landed at Queenstown, he managed to get back to his native town from where he applied to The Lusitania Relief Fund for compensation for his medical problems.
The fund had been set up just after the sinking by the Lord Mayor of Liverpool and other local businessmen and in July 1915, awarded Mr. Parkes a once and for all payment of £5-0s-0d on the grounds that having got over his medical problems, he had managed to obtain work.
It appears that William Parkes did enlist in the British Army, although no records have been uncovered in support of this, serving for three years during the War, and although never wounded, he was treated in military hospitals in England and France for illnesses or injuries sustained in the sinking of the Lusitania.
After being discharge from the army, he found work in a chocolate factory, and then in May 1921, he, and his wife and son, returned to Canada on board the Empress of Britain.
He filed a claim with the Canadian Commission, seeking compensation for personal injuries and the loss of his personal property in the sinking, and in 1923, he gave evidence in person before the Commission, who awarded him $500 for the loss of his personal effects, and a further $2,000 for the injuries he sustained in the sinking. By this time, he was working as a house painter.
In later years, he ran a retail store, and the family resided overhead the store at 2588. Danforth Avenue, Toronto.
William Parkes died at Toronto East General Hospital on the 19th May 1945, aged 53 years. He was suffering from stomach cancer, and had been operated on in the hospital on the 11th May. He was buried in St. John’s Norway Cemetery, Toronto.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, Birmingham England Church of England Baptisms 1813 – 1912, Ontario Canada Marriages 1826 – 1938, Ontario Canada Deaths and Deaths Overseas 1869 – 1948, 1901 Census of England & Wales, 1911 Census of England & Wales, Canadian Passenger Lists 1865 – 1935, Canada Ocean Arrivals 1919 – 1924, Cunard Records,
Canadian Claims case No. 783, Liverpool Record Office, PRO BT 100/345, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.