Sutcliffe Riley was born in Bradford, Yorkshire, England on the 17th February 1911, the son of Eddie Marlton and Annie Riley (née Taylor). He had a twin sister named Ethel, and her parents, who had emigrated from Bradford, had been working as weavers in a woollen mill in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, in the United States of America, but returned to Bradford for his birth.
In May 1911, his father had returned to the United States of America, and on finding a suitable home for the family in Lawrence, Massachusetts, his mother had brought Sutcliffe and his twin sister to Lawrence.
Probably because of the outbreak of the Great War, the family decided to return to Bradford, and as a result booked as third class passengers on what turned out to be the Lusitania’s last ever voyage trans-Atlantic crossing. They joined the vessel at Pier 54 in New York harbour just before she sailed at 12.20 p.m., on 1st May 1915.
All the family managed to survive after the ship was sunk, although it would appear that parents and children were separated when she went down.
Friends Elizabeth Hampshire and Florence Whitehead from Glossop in Cheshire who were travelling home from Boston, Massachusetts as second cabin passengers, related their experiences of the sinking in The Cheshire Daily Echo on 10th May 1915. Part of their account stated: -
Rushing on deck, they found that already the boats were being lowered. Helped by members of the crew and some of the male passengers they obtained a place in a boat. Four children were thrown into their boat, two of them being twins whose parents they afterwards learned were picked up by another boat.
As Ethel and Sutcliffe Riley were the only young twins known to have been on board when the liner went down, it must have been those to whom the friends were referring.
After being reunited with their parents, probably in Queenstown, the family eventually arrived in Great Horton, Bradford and the home of Sutcliffe’s maternal grandparents, on Monday 10th May 1915.
Sutcliffe Riley became a warehouse man, and on the 21st September 1935, he married Alice Tobin at St. John’s Church, Great Horton, Bradford. The couple resided at 22. Frimley Drive, Canterbury, Bradford, and one child, a daughter named Ethel Margaret, born in 1936.
Sutcliffe Riley died at The Royal Infirmary, Bradford, on the 17th August 1967, aged 56 years.
At the time of his death, he was residing at 150. Cooper Lane, Bradford, and on the 26th September 1967, at London, administration of his estate was granted to his widow, Alice. His estate amounted to £15,349.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, West Yorkshire Church of England Marriages and Banns 1813 – 1935, 1911 Census of England & Wales, 1939 Register, Massachusetts Passenger Lists 1820 – 1963, Cunard Records, Bradford Daily Telegraph, Cheshire Daily Echo, Probate Records, UniLiv D92/2/223, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.