William or Thomas Phillips was born a British subject around 1875, either in Great Britain itself or in the British Empire. In 1915, he had been living in Hillcrest, Alberta, Canada, where he worked as a coal miner.
On the 19th June 1914, an explosion in the coal mine killed 189 coal miners, making it the worst coal mining disaster in Canadian history. Whereas the coal mine resumed operations shortly after the disaster, the explosion had killed approximately half of the mine’s workforce at that time, leaving approximately 90 widows and 250 children orphaned.
Perhaps because of this disaster, or the continuance of the Great War, which started shortly after this event and which many thought would be ‘over by Christmas’, Mr. Phillips decided to travel to England, but whatever his reasoning was, in the spring of that year, he booked a ticket (numbered 5581) on the May sailing of the Lusitania from New York to Liverpool.
Having left Hillcrest some time in April, he arrived at the Cunard berth at Pier 54 in New York harbour on the morning of 1st May 1915, in time for the steamer’s scheduled 10.00 a.m. sailing. This was then delayed until just after mid-day, as the Cunarder had to embark cargo, passengers and some crew from the Anchor Lines ship the S.S. Cameronia, which the British Admiralty had requisitioned to use as a troop ship.
Then, six days out of New York, on the afternoon of 7th May, the Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-20, within sight of the coast of southern Ireland and only hours away from the safety of her home port.
William Phillips was one of some third class passengers who lost their lives as a result of this action and as his body was not recovered from the se and identified afterwards, he has no known grave. He was aged 40 years at the time of his death.
Although Mr. Phillips’ forename is recorded on official Cunard documents and the official lists of those who died at sea in 1915 as William, a list of passengers published in the Calgary Herald newspaper on the 8th May 1915 states that his forename was Thomas.
Other than what appears on the official lists and the Calgary Herald, nothing further is known about him.
Cunard Records, Calgary Herald, PRO BT 22/71, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.