Richard Preston Prichard was born in Willesden, a suburb of London, Middlesex, England, on the 27th April 1886, the son of George Scott and Margaret Caroline
Prichard (née Davies). The family home at the time of his birth was 3. St. Alban’s Road, Willesden. His father worked on the London Stock Exchange, and Richard was the middle child of the five children in the family.
The family later moved to 21. St. Michael’s Road, Bedford, Bedfordshire, and after his father died in May 1901, the family moved to 7, Brockenhurst Road, Ramsgate, Kent.
To help support his family, Richard Prichard left England for Canada in 1905, and over the next decade worked as a farmer, a lumberjack, and a property dealer. Then in 1910, he enrolled at McGill University in Montreal, Ontario, to study medicine.
In the spring of 1915, having completed his studies, and having recovered from blood poisoning contracted during that time, he decided to return home for a holiday. Consequently, he booked second cabin passage on what became the last voyage of the Lusitania, which was due to leave New York harbour on the morning of 1st May 1915.
Having left Montreal at the end of April, he joined the ship in time for this sailing, which, in the event, was delayed until just after mid-day. The delay was caused because the Lusitania had to load cargo and take on board passengers and crew from Anchor Liner the S.S. Cameronia which the British Admiralty had requisitioned as a troop ship at the end of April. Prichard joined three other second cabin passengers in Room D80.
Six days later, when the Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk, off the coast of southern Ireland, Richard Prichard was killed. He was aged 29 years. At that time the liner was struck, she was only about fourteen hours steaming time away from the safety of her home port.
Before he had left Montreal, Prichard had written home to tell his family of his plans and informed them that if there was any change in them, he would send them a cable. As no cable had arrived, the family had naturally assumed that he would return home some time on Saturday 8th May. Tragically, they received news of the sinking just before going to bed on the evening of Friday, 7th May.
Soon after that, Richard Prichard’s brother, Mostyn, telephoned the Cunard office at London and despite the hundreds of calls waiting to be attended to, eventually got through, to be told that any survivors had been landed at Queenstown.
He then set off for Queenstown, in the company of his friend and local clergyman, The Reverend B. Heald, to seek any news of his brother. Staying at The Westbourne Hotel in Queenstown, Mostyn Prichard even went as far as to put a plea for news in the local newspaper, The Cork Examiner, for 12th May 1915, which, under the title INFORMATION WANTED, stated: -
Wanted - any information regarding Richard Preston Prichard, aged 29 years. Height 5 feet 10 ins., dark brown hair, with high forehead, blue eyes and prominent features, very deep dimple in chin, wearing gold ring on tie with red and white lava heads inset.
Any information regarding him on the voyage, or that will lead to his discovery, will be most thankfully received by Mostyn Prichard, Westbourne Hotel, Queenstown.
The article was accompanied by a photograph of the missing man.
Despite the prominence given to the plea, however, nothing was ever seen or heard of him again. As a result, he has no known grave.
The agony of the family in Ramsgate was made even worse by the fact that at first, Dr. Prichard was confused with third class survivor Frederick Pickard, and on Tuesday, 11th May, Cunard cabled Brockenhurst Road with the news that Prichard was a survivor. This, unfortunately, was not the case and eventually, his death had to be conceded, by his distraught family
The Westbourne Hotel, at No. 4 Westbourne Place still stands today, although it is now an off-licence named The Cellar. Just after the sinking of the Lusitania, it was used to take in survivors and as they were gradually rehabilitated and sent on their own respective journeys home, it then took in many of the relatives, who like Mostyn Prichard, were seeking loved ones, dead or alive.
After the sinking, Mrs. Prichard and her family wrote many letters - over 140, in fact, to passenger and crew survivors seeking any information at all about Richard Preston Prichard, but unhappily, although many survivors remembered having seen him before the sinking, no information emerged concerning him after this!
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, London England Church of England Births and Baptisms 1813 – 1920, 1891 Census of England & Wales, 1901 Census of England & Wales, 1906 Census of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, 1911 Census of Canada, Canadian Passenger Lists 1865 – 1935, Cunard Records, Alberta Canada Homestead Records 1870 – 1930, Cork Examiner, East Kent Times, IWM GB62, PRO BT 100/345, UniLiv D92/2/178, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Anthony Richards, Peter Hart, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.