Thomas Archibald Crawford was born in Higher Tranmere, Birkenhead, Cheshire, England, on the 14th November 1889, the son of Thomas Archibald and Elizabeth Jane Crawford (née Ibbetson). He was one of five children, and by 1915, the family lived at 1, Argo Road, Crosby, near Liverpool. By 1911, his father, who was a commercial traveller by occupation, had died.
On completing his education, Thomas became an apprentice butcher, and after he completed his apprenticeship, he became a professional seaman by enlisting in the British Mercantile Marine. He served as a butcher on passenger liners out of Liverpool.
On the 12th April 1915, he signed on as Third Butcher in the Stewards' Department on board the Lusitania at a monthly rate of pay of £5-10s.-0d. (£5.50p). He joined the liner at 7 a.m. on the 17th April; before she left the River Mersey on her last ever voyage to the United States of America.
On the afternoon of the 7th May, while on the return voyage to Liverpool, the Cunarder was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine, U-20, within sight of the coast of southern Ireland and within fourteen hours sailing time of her home port.
Fortunately, Third Butcher Crawford survived this sinking and after being rescued from the sea, he was landed at Queenstown, from where he eventually made it back to
Liverpool. Once there, he was officially discharged from the Lusitania’s last voyage and paid the balance of wages owing to him, which amounted to £5-8.-8d. (£5.43p.). This was in respect of his service on board the ship from the 17th April 1915 until the 8th May; 24 hours after ’the greyhound of the seas’ had gone down.
Thereafter, he continued to serve with the Mercantile Marine until he was killed, whilst serving as Fourth Butcher, on board the hospital ship, Britannic, on the 21st November 1916.
The Britannic, completed in 1914, and grossing 48,758 tons, was a sister ship to the ill-fated Titanic. She had originally belonged to the White Star Line before being taken over by the Admiralty as a hospital ship on the 13th November 1915. She was on passage, empty of patients, from Southampton, via Naples, to Mudros on the island of Imbros in the Aegean Sea, when she struck a mine in the Kea Channel and sank. The mine had been laid by the German submarine, U-73.
Before the ship sank, most of the personnel managed to get into lifeboats, but some of these were then drawn into the thrashing screws and were then killed as the lifeboats were splintered. 21 crew members and 9 officers and men from the Royal Army Medical Corps were lost. One of the lost crew members was Fourth Baker Crawford, who was aged 27 years. As his body was not found and identified afterwards, his name is embossed on the Mercantile Memorial at Tower Hill, London.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, Liverpool England Church of England Baptisms 1813 – 1919, 1891 Census of England, 1901 Census of England, 1911 Census of England, Cunard Records, Commonwealth War Graves Commission, UK Campaign Medals Awarded to World War I Merchant Seamen 1914 – 1925, PRO BT 100/345, PRO BT 351/1/30445, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Peter Threlfall, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.
Revised & Updated –23rd January 2023.