Ralph Jack Richard Mecredy was born at his family home – Rockville, Dundrum, Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland, on the 12th July 1888, the son of Richard James Patrick and Catherine Anne May Mecredy (née Hopkins). The family home was in Dublin. His father was well known in Dublin in connection with the Irish motor and cycling world, as well as being a journalist. Ralph Mecredy was the second eldest of six children, and qualified as a doctor of medicine, having studied at Trinity College, Dublin.
In 1891, his father had invented the sport of cycle polo, and as a member of the Irish cycle polo team, Ralph won a gold medal at the 1908 Summer Olympic Games in London; however, as cycle polo was only a demonstration sport at the games, the victory does not count in the official standings. At the 1912 Summer Olympic Games in Stockholm, he competed in the men’s cycling road races, in both the individual and team events, but without success in either event!
In February 1914, Ralph Mecredy, now a fully qualified medical doctor, went to the United States of America where he had secured a position at Battle Creek Sanatorium, in Battle Creek, Michigan, to further his study of tuberculosis.
Then, in 1915, he decided to return to Dublin, where he intended to offer his services as an army doctor, and as a consequence, he booked second cabin passage to Liverpool on the Lusitania and travelling from Battle Creek at the end of April 1915, he joined the vessel at New York, in time for her (delayed) sailing, on the early afternoon of 1st May.
When the liner was torpedoed and sunk, six days later and only hours away from her destination, Doctor Mecredy was lucky enough to be counted amongst the survivors. Having been rescued from the sea and landed at Queenstown, he made it back to Dublin, where he was interviewed about his experiences by a reporter from The Evening Mail. This interview was then republished in many Irish newspapers and stated: -
Dr Mecredy was kind enough to tell me his experiences, always with the proviso that it is not very easy in an emergency of the kind through which he has passed to preserve clear and collected memories of everything that happened. There was a great deal of confusion, a great deal of excitement and a series of dramatic pictures that have burned themselves into his mind.
‘It was fortunate for me,’ he said ‘that I happened to be on deck when the torpedo struck us. It took me quite unawares and I am not amongst those who say that they saw the track of the torpedo coming straight for the ship.’
I asked Dr. Mecredy if he could tell me what the sensation is like when a big liner is struck by a torpedo? ‘I cannot very well describe it,’ he said, ‘but it was as though the ship was suddenly checked by a gigantic and invisible hand. It was as if the ship was pulled back once, went on again a bit and was pulled back again. Then there was an explosion, and everything seemed to turn black. Huge spouts of water, apparently black, came down over the decks. There was a lady standing by the rail just under where the torpedo struck. A huge water-spot rose beside her, fell on her and knocked her down, but I do not think she was seriously injured.’
‘What happened after the shock?’ I asked. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I remember walking along the deck, realising what had happened and wondering in my own mind whether the ship would sink. I cannot say that there was any panic, which is a relative term, but there was certainly a great deal of confusion. The first thing that I noticed was that there an order was issued that the women and children should go at once to the boat deck. Another thing that I noticed - though whether then or subsequently I am not quite clear - was that when a large number of passengers were going to one of the stairs, followed by a number of seamen and stokers, some children fell. There was no attempt to rush over them. They were carefully picked up and set on their feet again.
It was after walking round the deck for a few minutes, that I made up my mind that the vessel was going to sink. I did so because she was sinking by the head and listing to one side. I think it was at this moment that I saw that one of the boats had been swung out and had caught on one of the davits. There were people still in her and then I saw some people in the sea a little distance away, and I remembered wondering how they got there and realising afterwards that they must have fallen out of the boat.
Then I decided that if the ship was going to sink, I would be safer in the water. I had an idea that I would be better to strip and jump in it at once and that the sea would be safer than the ship at that moment. But as she was still travelling, I realised that if I jumped in I would soon be left behind and perhaps out of sight. And there were no rescue ships in sight, not a sail or a smoke track on the horizon.
Then I had to make up my mind to drop into the sea over the stern of the ship or to go for'ard to the bow where she was sinking, and where her deck rails were awash. I thought that if I tried the for'ard plunge, she might go down at that moment and perhaps roll over on to me or that in any case if she went down, I would be sucked under with her or perhaps be struck as I came up with some of the floating wreckage. It was while I
was pondering this matter that it occurred to me that I ought to go down below and get a life-belt.
I found no great difficulty in going down below and getting a life-belt though I am sorry to say that I did not know exactly how to put it on. However, I took off everything except my trousers and shirt and got into the life-belt as best I could. Then I tackled again the problem as to whether I should go into the sea from the stern or the bow. Just as I came on deck, the vessel gave a lurch, which knocked a lot of people down and it occurred to me that it was time to move. I decided that I would go aft and see what I could do there.
I went aft as far as I could go but the dive that I saw from there was too much for me. I never was much of a high diver and with the stern of the Lusitania sticking out of the water, it was a murderous looking jump. I noticed the log rope hanging from the side and decided that I would take the risk of going down by that. I climbed over and began to lower myself, hand over hand and using my bare feet to steady myself. But I found that the rope soon tailed off into a wire rope, and when I looked up, I found a couple of stokers were coming down on top of me and that I had to hurry. I proceeded to climb down and that is why my fingers are in bandages. It tore the flesh off them though I did not feel it at the time, or indeed until the next day. When I was in the water, I think they soon got numb.
When I reached the water I must have gone down a few feet and when I came to the surface I was bumped into by the stoker who was coming down the rope after me and I was driven under the surface again. I immediately struck out with the idea of getting as far away from the sinking ship as I could. I swam around for a bit trying to collect my wits and to decide what was the best thing to do. Presently I saw a ship's boat, and although she was pretty full, I thought the best thing I could do was to go after her".
"Were you invited to get in?" I asked. "Well," he said "to tell you the truth I was not. But I did not think it an occasion to stand upon ceremony, or rather to swim upon ceremony. I came up behind the stern of the ship and simply climbed in.
Perhaps I forgot to tell you that one of the most trying moments was when I was attempting to get upstairs after getting my life belt. The stairway in the interval had become packed with a struggling mass of humanity pushing their way down and against whom I would have had no chance of pushing my way up. I swung my leg over the banister and crawled up on the outside, hand over hand, without interfering with the crowd. I dare say that if I had had to wait for them to pass by, I should have been too late. But I was telling you how I got into the boat.
It was pretty full of women and children and some of the crew, seamen, stokers and stewards. There did not seem to be anybody able to take charge, and we were rowing with two oars on one side and four on the
other. There was a good deal of excitement. Somebody suggested that there was no plug in the bottom of the boat, merely because there was a little water in her; and somebody else suggested that we should probably be torpedoed. As soon as I took a look around, however, I was satisfied that things were all right for the present, and I at once turned round to see what I could of the Lusitania.
She was sinking rapidly by the head, and her stern was getting higher and higher in the water. There were boats dotted about here and there, and a number of people clinging to wreckage. Then she gave a great lurch and went right under. I cannot say whether there was much suction. I don't think there was any explosion, but I could not be sure of that because I do not think that in a moment of intense excitement the memory registers sound. The water was churned into a froth over the place where the liner had been; and air bubbles came bursting up. Then wreckage began to come up and float around and you found it almost incredible to believe that the great liner had been there only a short while ago.
I suppose it must have been an hour before we saw any sign of rescue ships. We saw a smoke track on the horizon, a little while afterwards another and in a short while, help could be seen coming from all points of the compass. We were picked up by a trawler, but some of my fellow-passengers declined to go on board the trawler as they feared that she might be torpedoed. The Irish coast was by this time in sight and we were taken to Queenstown. There we were taken in charge by the Cunard Company, and I was given quarters in the Rob Roy Hotel and given food and clothing. We were not given any money and I had left everything behind on the ship. However, I was given a pass from Queenstown to Dublin, and I was fortunate enough to be able to induce the Cunard Company to advance me one shilling which represented my fare from Dublin to Bray".
Dr. Mecredy smiled over the recollection of the financial embarrassment, surely the least troublesome thing in an experience of this kind. "It is hard," he said, "to give you a connected narrative where so many things come crowding into your mind. For example, I believe I saw the German submarine. I thought I saw an upturned boat some distance away with men walking up and down on her. A lady who was saved told me the same thing and that she recognised it as a German submarine, because it flew a German flag. Another thing that I noticed before the ship sank was a steward who was busy taking photographs of the doomed ship; no doubt he had a good idea of the value of such war photographs. His dead body was brought ashore afterwards with two cameras strapped round his waist."
Despite the assertion of a few of the passengers that the U-20 surfaced after the torpedoing - some accounts even state that the crew taunted survivors in their lifeboats, Kapitänleutnant Schwieger’s log book makes no mention of this happening at all, after the liner had been torpedoed.
Despite the fact that Dr. Mecredy saw cameras strapped around the waist of the body of the crew amateur war photographer, no photographs of the sinking were ever published afterwards. Telegraphist Robert Leith is also known to have taken photographs of the sinking ship as the bows of the Lusitania were actually under the water, but these did not survive either!
Cunard records show the doctor’s name to be spelled McCredy, but this is erroneous, as all other contemporary accounts spell it correctly, as shown above.
Having recovered from his ordeal at his family home, which was now at “Vallombrosa”, Bray, County Wicklow, he was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the Royal Army Medical Corps, later being promoted to Captain, and served for the duration of the War.
On the 19th February 1916, he married Jeannie Marie Noelle Edith Lasalle du Puybusque in Lowestoft, Suffolk, England, and after the War ended, they first went to Iraq, and then New Zealand, where Dr. Mecredy established himself in private practise, and was on the staff of Waikato Hospital. The couple had two children – Noel and Michael, before Edith Mecredy died in Wellington Hospital on the 12th May 1937.
Shortly after her death, he returned to England, and resided with his mother, and some of his siblings, at 26. Station Road, Kenilworth, Warwickshire. While there, he met Dr. Eleanor Emma Taylor-Pengelly, who was a medical doctor, and had also studied medicine at Trinity College, Dublin, at the same time as Ralph Mecredy. She had lived in Jamaica, for some years, married a fellow doctor, had a daughter, and was divorced before returning to the British Isles. They married in late 1939 in Leicestershire.
Ralph Mecredy later became the Medical Health Officer in Lincolnshire.
He died in Sussex on the 20th April 1968, aged 79 years.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, 1901 Census of Ireland, 1911 Census of Ireland, 1939 Register, Massachusetts Passenger Lists 1820 – 1963, Cunard Records, British Army World War I Medal Rolls Index Cards 1914 – 1920, Cork Examiner, The Evening Mail, Evening Post, Auckland Star, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.