John Edward Williams, always known as Edward or ‘Eddie’, was the eldest of the six surviving children of John and Annie Williams (née Millman). He was born on the 5th March 1905, in Marlborough, Massachusetts, in the United States of America. Originally from England, the family had immigrated to the United States of America in April 1904. His parents first settled in Marlborough, Massachusetts, where his father worked as a shoemaker, and where Eddie was born, before his father took up a job as a motor mechanic in Plainfield, New Jersey, where they family settled. In total, there were nine children born to his parents; however, three died in infancy.
On 1st April 1915, his father 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. 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.
As the family members were without any means of support, a charitable group, The St. George’s Society, paid their passage to England and as a consequence, at the end of April 1915, Edward's mother Annie and the other children, Edith, George, Ethel, Florence and David, 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.
Six days later, in the early afternoon of 7th May, she was torpedoed and sunk, by the German submarine U-20 when she was twelve miles off the south coast of Ireland and only hours away from her Liverpool destination. As a consequence of the torpedoing, Mrs. Williams and George, Ethel, Florence and David were killed and only Edward and Edith from the whole family were saved.
After Eddie Williams had been rescued from the sea, he was landed at Queenstown and having been re-united with his sister Edith - the only other member of the family to survive - they were both taken to the Leahy Estate in Cork. After two weeks, during which the enormity of the tragedy of the sinking must have begun to occur to them both, their uncle, David Forster arrived to take them back to Merseyside, where they were re-united with their father, John, in Hoylake.
Not long after this, 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 hard times as a result of the sinking.
The awards committee granted him the once-and-for-all sum of just £5-0s-0d., as he was, by this time, 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 in 1919. 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 were not qualified to make a valid claim.
By 1920, aged 15 years, joined the merchant marine, serving as a bell boy on the Cunard liners Imperator (later re-named Berengaria) and Caronia. He rose to become a steward on trans-Atlantic liners, and serving in the Merchant Navy throughout the Second World War.
By 1940, he was living permanently in the United States of America, residing 531. West Front Street, Plainfield, New Jersey. When not at sea, he worked for Benjamin Eiseman Inc., an electrical company in Plainfield.
On the 6th March 1954, he married Irene L. Bennett at the Warrenville Congregational Church in New Market, New Jersey. His wife had divorced her first husband, Frank Royal Wodtke, in November 1953 on grounds of desertion, and was the mother of three children.
The couple lived in Dunellen, New Jersey, and for the last fifteen years of his working life, Eddie Williams worked as a pressman for a company named Art Color in Dunellen. He finally retired from working in 1968, aged 63 years.
Eddie Williams died at Raritan Bay Medical Centre, Perth Amboy, New Jersey, on the 27th February 1992, aged 86 years. He was buried in Lake Nelson Memorial Park, Piscataway, New Jersey, beside his wife, Irene, who died in 1970.
Massachusetts U.S. Birth Records 1840 – 1915, New Jersey U.S. Marriage Index 1901 – 2016, New Jersey U.S. Death Index 1901 – 2017, 1910 U.S. Federal Census, New York Passenger Lists 1820 – 1957, UK Incoming Passenger Lists 1878 – 1960, Cunard Records, U.S. World War II Draft Cards Young Men 1940 – 1947, Mixed Claims Commission Docket No. 2558, Birkenhead News, Courier-News, Tragedy of the Lusitania, Liverpool Record Office, PRO BT 350, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Stuart Williamson, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.