Although no birth record can be found, John Barney was stated to have been born in Liverpool, Lancashire, England, in 1889, and in 1915, lived at 12, Benhill Road, Camberwell, London. Nothing is known about him or his family.
He had been serving on the Anchor Liner S.S. Cameronia, but as the vessel arrived in New York at the end of April 1915, she was requisitioned by the Admiralty for war use as a troop ship. Consequently, on the 30th April 1915, he transferred to the Lusitania, as a waiter in the Stewards' Department, for what became the liner’s fateful final voyage. His rate of pay in this rank was £4-5s-0d (£4.25) per month.
What must have seemed at first to be a stroke of good fortune certainly turned sour for him, for he was killed seven days later when the liner was sunk, only hours from her Liverpool destination, off the coast of southern Ireland, by the German submarine, U-20. As his body was not recovered and identified later, he has no known grave. He was aged 26 years at the time of the sinking.
Official Cunard records published in March 1916 do not show anyone of the name of John Barney to have served on the Lusitania, but they do record a Waiter John Varney. John Barney does appear in the official Cunard Particulars of Engagement register, however, filled in when all crew members first engaged for service and now held at The Public Record Office at Richmond in Surrey.
As the records of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission also show that Waiter John Barney was a casualty of the sinking, the official 1916 Cunard list is obviously in error and Waiter John Varney did not actually exist!
Cunard Records, Commonwealth War Graves Commission, PRO BT 100/345, PRO BT 334, UniLiv D92/6/1, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.
Revised & Updated – 11th December 2022.