Joseph Thompson was born in Holbeck, Leeds, Yorkshire, England, on the 13th March 1866, the son of George and Emily Amelia Thompson (née McIntosh). His father was a general labourer, and later a school caretaker. Although Joseph was the only child of his parents’ marriage, he did have an older half-brother named Charles Henry McIntosh, who his mother gave birth to as a single woman, some years before she met her husband.
As a young teenager, Joseph worked in a woollen mill, where his mother was a weaver, before becoming a boiler maker.
On the 24th December 1892, he married Sarah Ann Kirby, and they had a son named Norman, who was born in 1896. The family home was originally at 26. Coupland Terrace, but they later moved to 1, Colville Terrace, Beeston Hill, Leeds.
In March 1910, Joseph Thompson travelled to the United States of America and settled in Boston, Massachusetts, where he found work as a boiler maker with the New York and Newhaven Railway Company. As soon as he had settled in Boston, he sent for his wife and son to join him, which they duly did in July, and they established their home at 83. Charles Street, Boston. They later moved to 150. Neponset Street, Canton, Massachusetts. Both Joseph and his son, Norman, were employed at the railroad facility at nearby Readville, where they maintained and repaired railway stock.
In the spring of 1915, the family decided to return to England for a holiday and as a consequence, booked passage for the journey home, on the Lusitania. They left Canton at the end of April and with ticket number 129911, they joined the liner as third class passengers on the morning of 1st May 1915.
After a delay caused because the Cunarder had to embark passengers, crew and cargo from the Anchor lines vessel Cameronia, requisitioned by the British Admiralty as a troop ship, the Lusitania left port at 12.27 p.m. What must have started out as a happy adventure then had a tragic ending for the family, just six days later, however, after the liner was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-20, within sight of the coast of southern Ireland. Only Joseph Thompson survived this action - both his wife and son were killed. He was aged 39 years at the time.
He was eventually rescued from the sea by Royal Naval Patrol Boat H.M.S. Heron, under the command of Captain H. Iver, R.N.R., which then landed him, eight other survivors and five corpses at Kinsale. From there, Thompson was taken to Queenstown from where he eventually made it back to Leeds.
On the day after the sinking, Cunard at Queenstown sent a cable to a Mr. E.A. Thompson at the Beeston Hill address, which stated: -
Joseph Thompson, Sarah Ann Thompson Norman Thompson saved.
This information was obviously a mistake, which must have caused great distress to the family at the time.
From there, in the early summer of 1915, Joseph Thompson applied for financial help from The Lusitania Relief Fund. This fund had been set up after the sinking by The
Lord Mayor of Liverpool and other worthy members of the city business houses, to help those second and third class survivors and relatives of the dead to overcome some of their losses. It granted Joseph Thompson the sum of £22-2s-0d., (£22.10p.), in respect of the deaths of his wife and son and the fact that his own health had been seriously injured as a result of the sinking.
Perhaps believing that there was nothing left to keep him in England after such a family tragedy, he returned to the United States of America on board the S.S. Carpathia on the 17th July 1915, The Cunard Steam Ship Company paying for his passage to New York!
Nothing further is known about Joseph Thompson except that he married Ann Hitchen in Leeds on the 21st April 1917. How or where they lived their lives is not known.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, West Yorkshire England Church of England Births and Baptisms 1813 – 1910, West Yorkshire England Church of England Marriages and Banns 1813 – 1935, 1871 Census of England & Wales, 1881 Census of England & Wales, 1891 Census of England & Wales, 1901 Census of England & Wales, 1910 U.S. Federal Census, Massachusetts U.S. State and Federal Naturalization Records 1798 – 1950, Massachusetts Passenger Lists 1820 – 1963, UK Outward Passenger Lists 1890 – 1960, Cunard Records, Liverpool Records Office, Boston Globe, PRO BT 100/345, UNiLiv.D92/1/6, UniLiv D92/2/197, UniLiv D92/2/379(b), UniLiv D92/11, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.