Annie Williams was stated to have been born Annie Millman in Great Britain around 1877; however, no evidence of her origins or life prior to 1910 can be found.
In his evidence to the U.S. Mixed Claims Commission in 1924, her husband, John Williams, stated that they were both British subjects and had married in Manchester, Lancashire, in 1896, and had lived in Manchester until 1904; however, no record of a marriage has been found in support of his claim, and in the 1910 U.S. Federal Census, the couple claimed to have been married for six years, indicating they had married in 1904!
The couple are believed to have immigrated to the United States of America in 1904 or 1905, and originally went to Marlborough, Massachusetts, where John Williams found work as a shoemaker, before settling in Plainfield, New Jersey, where he found a position as a motor mechanic, and later became a groom. They had six children while living in the United States, John Edward, born in Marlborough in 1905, Edith Middleton, born in 1906, George Albert, born in 1908, Ethel, born in 1910, Florence, born in 1911, and David, born in 1915, but they had nine children in total. The other three children died in infancy.
On 1st April 1915, John Williams joined the Cunard Steamship Company as a steward, and sailed for Liverpool on the Lusitania on that date, the last eastward voyage the great liner would ever complete. Once in Liverpool, he crossed the River Mersey to the home of his sister, Mrs. Charlotte Foster of Deva Villas, Church Road, Hoylake, Cheshire. Having obtained work as a motor mechanic in a garage opposite the nearby railway station, he sent for his wife and family to join him.
The family was destitute, however and a charitable group, The St. George’s Society, paid its passage to England. As a consequence, at the end of April 1915, they all set out from Plainfield to New York, where, on 1st May they boarded the Lusitania as third class passengers for the trans-Atlantic voyage.
When the ship was sunk, six days later, Annie Williams and George, Ethel, Florence and David were killed, only Edward and Edith were saved.
Annie Williams was aged 37 and as her body was never recovered from the sea and identified afterwards, she has no known grave.
In the summer of 1915, her husband, John Williams, applied to The Lusitania Relief Fund, for financial help. This fund had been set up immediately after the liner had gone down, by The Lord Mayor of Liverpool and other local business dignitaries to help second and third class passenger survivors and the relatives of those who had perished, who had come upon financial difficulties as a result of the sinking. It was thought at the time that the saloon passengers would not need financial help!
The awards committee granted John Williams £5-0s-0d to compensate him for the loss of most of his family. At that time he was stated to have been employed as a coachman.
In May 1916, John Williams, still employed as a steward with the Cunard Steamship Company, returned to the United States with his two surviving children. He left them with friends for a while, but returned to England with them after a short while. He filed a claim for compensation for the loss of his wife and children, but it was rejected by the Mixed Claims Commission on the grounds that both he, and his late wife, had been British subjects at the time of their deaths, and therefore he was not qualified to make a valid claim.
It has been reported in many accounts that John Williams had deserted his family in April 1915, but no evidence has been discovered in support of these accounts.
1910 U.S. Federal Census, Cunard Records, Mixed Claims Commission Docket No. 2558, Birkenhead News, Exploring the Lusitania, Liverpool Record Office, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Stuart Williamson, Geoff Whitfield, Michael
Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.