Edwin Arthur Huther was born in Dublin, Ireland, on the 22nd of January 1856, the son of George and Ellen Huther (née Clarke). While Edwin was still a young child, his family moved across the Irish Sea to Liverpool, Lancashire, England. His father, who was a tailor, died in Liverpool in 1860, and the family then moved to Leeds, Yorkshire. Edwin’s mother was a theatrical costume maker. He was the youngest of three known children in the family, having a brother named Alfred, and a sister named Clara Mary.
By the time Edwin was a teenager, he and his mother had moved back to Liverpool where his mother managed a boarding house at Lord Nelson St. in the city centre, and Edwin became a clerk to a cotton broker.
By the late 1870’s, Edwin had enlisted in the Mercantile Marine and was serving as a waiter on passenger vessels out of Liverpool and Glasgow, Scotland.
In the summer of 1877, he married Margaret Roche in Liverpool. The couple had two children, John Edwin and Elina.
In January 1899, Margaret Huther died in Liverpool, aged 42 years, and was buried in Anfield Cemetery, Liverpool, with her son, John Edwin, who had died in 1880, aged 5 months. No trace can be found of Elina after her birth.
On the 3rd April 1900, Edwin married Jane Hughes in Manhattan, New York City in the United States of America, and they lived at 31, Albert Edward Road, Kensington, Liverpool. The couple had no children.
Edwin Huther engaged as a first class bedroom steward in the Stewards' Department on board the Lusitania at Liverpool on the 12th April 1915, at a monthly wage of £4-5s.-0d. (£4.25p.), and he joined the ship at 7 a.m. on the 17th April before she sailed out of the River Mersey for the last time.
Having reached New York safely, on her voyage back to Liverpool, Huther had personal responsibility for the 21 persons in the fourteen saloon rooms numbered D35 to D63. Six days out of New York, on the afternoon of the 7th May, the Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-20, only twelve miles from the coast of southern Ireland and only hours away from her home port. Only four passengers from the rooms looked after by the first class bedroom steward survived the sinking and Huther too was killed as a result of the enemy action. He was aged 59 years.
His body was never found and identified and as a consequence, he is commemorated on the Mercantile Marine Memorial at Tower Hill, London. He is also commemorated on a plaque which once stood in Christchurch, Kensington, Liverpool. This plaque was moved to nearby Kensington Public Library in September 2001, after the church, which had closed down, had become derelict.
Administration of his estate was granted to his widow, Jane, on the 17th June 1915, and
his effects amounted to £1,673-15s.-11d. (£1,673. 80p), which was a considerable amount for those days. In August 1915, she was also sent the balance of wages owing to him for his service on the Lusitania’s last voyage, which was reckoned from the 17th April 1915 until the 8th May, 24 hours after the liner had foundered. The Liverpool and London War Risks Insurance Association Limited also granted an annual pension to Jane Huther to compensate her for the loss of her husband which amounted to £23-11s.-8d. (£23.58½p.), payable at the rate of £5-19s.-11d. (£5.99½p.) per quarter.
Edwin’s widow, Jane Huther died in Liverpool in 1942, aged 85 years.
Register of Births, Marriages, and Deaths, Liverpool England Church of England Baptisms 1813 – 1919, New York U.S. Extracted Marriage Index 1866 – 1937, 1861 Census of England, 1871 Census of England, 1891 Census of England, 1901 Census of England, 1911 Census of England, Cunard Records, Commonwealth War Graves Commission, National School Admission Registers and Log Books 1870 – 1914, The Victoria Gazette, Probate Records, UniLiv. PR 13/24, PRO BT 334, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Joe Devereux, David Irving, Robert O'Brien, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.
Revised & Updated – 21st January 2024.