Frederick A. Snowden was believed to have been born in England in 1895.
In 1915, he had been in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, probably in the course of employment, when he decided to return home - maybe as a consequence of the Great War.
As a result, he purchased a third class ticket on the May sailing of the Lusitania from New York to Liverpool, and leaving Toronto at the end of April, he arrived at the Cunard berth at Pier 54 in New York, on the morning of 1st May 1915, in time for the liner’s scheduled 10.00 a.m. departure.
This was then delayed until the afternoon as she had to embark passengers, crew and cargo from fellow Cunarder Cameronia, which had been requisitioned by the British Admiralty as a troop ship, at the end of April. The Lusitania finally left port just after mid-day and just six days later, on the afternoon of 7th May; she was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-20. At that point, she was twelve miles off the coast of southern Ireland and only 250 miles away from her home port.
Fredrick Snowden was unfortunately one of nearly 250 third class passengers killed as a result of this action and as his body was never recovered from the sea and identified afterwards, he has no known grave. He was aged 20 years.
Cunard Records, PRO BT 100/345, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.