Ethel Riley was born in Bradford, Yorkshire, England, on the 17th February 1911, the daughter of Eddie Marlton and Annie Riley (née Taylor). She had a twin brother named Sutcliffe, and her parents, who had emigrated from Bradford, had been working as weavers in a woollen mill in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, in the United States of America, but returned to Bradford for her birth.
In May 1911, her father had returned to the United States of America, and on finding a suitable home for the family in Lawrence, Massachusetts, her mother had brought Ethel and her twin brother to Lawrence.
Maybe because of the outbreak of the Great War, her parents decided to return to Bradford, and consequently booked as third class passengers on what proved to be the Lusitania’s final ever voyage. They joined the liner at New York harbour before her sailing just after mid-day, on 1st May 1915.
The four family members were fortunate enough to survive after the ship was lost, six days later, although it would appear that parents and children were separated at the time.
Friends Elizabeth Hampshire and Florence Whitehead from Glossop in Cheshire who were travelling home from Boston, Massachusetts as second cabin passengers, related their experiences of the sinking in The Cheshire Daily Echo on 10th May 1915. Part of their account stated: -
Rushing on deck, they found that already the boats were being lowered. Helped by members of the crew and some of the male passengers they obtained a place in a boat. Four children were thrown into their boat, two of them being twins whose parents they afterwards learned were picked up by another boat.
As the only young twins known to have been on board were the Riley twins, it must have been those to whom the friends were referring.
After being reunited with their parents, probably in Queenstown, the family eventually arrived in Great Horton, Bradford and the home of Ethel’s maternal grandparents, on Monday 10th May 1915.
Ethel became a burler and mender in a worsted wool factory, and on the 3rd August 1935, she married James Jeffrey at Wesley Place Congregational Chapel, Baker Street, Great Horton, Bradford. The couple resided at 15. Southmere Avenue, Great Horton, Bradford, and had no children.
Ethel Jeffrey died at St. Luke’s Hospital, Bradford, on the 6th March 1966, aged 55 years. Her husband had died in 1953.
At the time of her death, she was residing at 23. Cragg Terrace, Great Horton, Bradford, and on the 21st April 1966, at Wakefield, administration of her estate was granted to her twin brother, Sutcliffe, who was at that time a warehouse foreman. Her estate amounted to £5,363.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, West Yorkshire Non-Conformist Records 1646 – 1985, 1911 Census of England & Wales, 1939 Register, Massachusetts Passenger Lists 1820 – 1963, Cunard Records, Bradford Daily Telegraph, Cheshire Daily Echo, Probate Records, UniLiv D92/2/223, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.