Ralph Troupe Moodie was born on the 29th October 1870, in Rock Ferry, Birkenhead, Cheshire, the son of Edwin Ramsey and Helena Maria Moodie (née Warriner). He had a twin sister named Flora Centre, and they were the youngest of the family’s four children. His father, who was born in Scotland, was principal officer at the Board of Trade in Liverpool and his mother was born in the United States of America. At the time of his birth, the family resided at 34. Rock Lane, Higher Bebington, Birkenhead.
He joined Sedburgh School in 1884 and left in April 1887, having played rugby football for the school 1st XV in 1886 and 1887, and for the Cheshire County XV, in 1890 and 1891.
He was a cotton broker and a co-founder and member of Messrs. Wilson, Moodie and Cooper, and he also had an interest in the firm of Messrs Duncan, Fox & Co., of Valparaiso, Chile.
From 1903, he lived in Gainesville, Texas, and made annual visits to England to spend time with his family. These visits were usually of three months duration, from May to August.
On the 3rd June 1908, he married Mary Riggs Hemming in Colorado Springs, El Paso County, Colorado, but the marriage was a very short one, as by 1910, they had divorced!
In the spring of 1915, he made his plans for his annual visit back to England, and it was from Gainesville that he planned his return home to Liverpool as a saloon passenger on the May sailing of the Lusitania, a liner he had sailed on many times.
Booking his ticket, (number 46117), through Williams & Prehn, of the New York Cotton Exchange, he set off by rail from Gainesville at the end of April 1915 and arrived in New York in time to join the vessel at her berth at Pier 54, for her sailing on 1st May 1915. Once on board, he was allocated room A26, which was under the personal supervision of First Class Bedroom Steward John Perry, who came from Seaforth, on the outskirts of Liverpool.
Accompanying Mr. Moodie from Gainesville to Liverpool was an English colleague and associate from his firm, Robert Timmis, who was allocated room A27, not far from Ralph Moodie, and the pair spent most of their time on the voyage together. They were together, in fact, enjoying the end of their lunch in the first class dining saloon, on the afternoon of 7th May, when the liner was struck by a torpedo fired from the German submarine U-20, twelve miles off the coast of southern Ireland.
They immediately pushed their chairs back from the table and made for the dining room door. Even as they got there, they noticed that the ship had begun to list and walking calmly to their cabins, which were on the port side of the ship, they both found that the interiors were already a litter of jumbled articles. Finding lifebelts, nevertheless, they crossed to the starboard side on to the boat deck, where they both helped some of the crew to lower a lifeboat with about 60 persons in it.
Not long afterwards, Captain Turner gave an order to empty the lifeboats, as he was sure that the Lusitania was not going to sink. Even though the vessel did actually right herself, just after this, he and Robert Timmis realised that she was going to go down and made preparations for this inevitability.
Although Timmis survived and his account of the sinking would later be used by Adolph and Mary Hoehling in their 1956 book, The Last Voyage of the Lusitania, (although they do refer to him throughout the book as Timmins), Ralph Troupe Moodie perished. His body was not recovered from the sea and identified afterwards and as a result, he has no known grave. He was aged 44 years at the time of his death.
By that time, his official home in England was with his widowed mother in Hoylake, Cheshire, which was an Edwardian seaside resort on the Wirral Peninsula, across the River Mersey from Liverpool. A memorial service was held for him at St. Hildeburgh’s Church of England Church in Hoylake, at noon, on Friday 21st May 1915.
Bedroom Steward Perry, who had no doubt ministered to Moodie’s every need in room A26, also perished in the sinking.
He left most of his estate to his twin sister, Flora, and her children, and also provided for the children of his brother, Ramsey.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, Colorado County Marriages and State Indexes 1862 – 2006, 1871 Census of England & Wales, 1881 Census of England & Wales, 1891 Census of England & Wales, 1910 U.S. Federal Census, New Orleans Passenger Lists 1813 – 1963, New York Passenger Lists 1820 – 1957, Cunard Records, Birkenhead News, Liverpool Echo, Houston Post, Sedburgh School Register, Last Voyage of the Lusitania, Texas U.S. Wills and Probate Records 1833 – 1974, Probate Records, PRO 22/71, PRO BT 100/345, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Joe Devereux, Lawrence Evans, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.