Thomas John ‘Tom’ Williams was born in Pontymister, Risca, Monmouthshire, Wales, in 1882, the son of Daniel and Martha Williams (née Davies). His father was a steel smelter and Tom was one of nine children, although only four were alive by 1911.
He was a professional singer, and since the autumn of 1913 he had been performing in Canada and the United States of America with The Royal Gwent Male Voice Choir - sometimes known as The Royal Gwent Glee Singers, who were based in South Wales.
When their tour came to an end in April 1915, the fourteen members of the choir had booked passage on the Anchor Liner Transylvania, sailing out of New York, in the first week of May, for their return to South Wales. However, when they had arrived in that city, they discovered that there was accommodation available on the Lusitania, which was a bigger, faster ship and would therefore get them home quicker. Nine of them thus transferred to the ship mistakenly, as it turned out, believing that she would be safer from a U-Boat attack!
Tom Williams was one of those nine, the others being, G.F. Davies, S. Hill, D.T. Hopkins, I.T. Jones, W.G. Jones, G.B. Lane, D. Michael, J.P. Smith and T. Williams.
Just after mid-day on 1st May 1915, as the Lusitania left Pier 54 in New York harbour,
the choir lined up on deck and sang the American national anthem The Star Spangled Banner. Each night thereafter on the voyage, the choristers had given a concert in each of the saloons on board, in aid of seamen’s charities in England. When the liner was torpedoed and sunk, six days later and only hours away from her Liverpool destination, three members of the choir perished, with six surviving.
Tom Williams was one of the survivors and after the liner sank, he found himself struggling in the water.
W.G. Lloyd, in Roll of Honour, tells how he was rescued from the water by fellow chorister Gwyn Jones: -
Climbing on top of the capsized boat, he observed choir members Dewi Michael, Tom Williams, and Spencer Hill, and managing to get near them, he pulled them up alongside him. Tom Williams of Pontymister, gave up hope and gripping Hill by the hand, he said “Goodbye, Spencer; its all over.”
They continued to pick up people from the water and by lashing boats together and making a raft they were able to save around forty people. After they had been floating around for some time, the members of the choir starred singing ‘Praise God from Whom all blessings flow,’ and Spencer Hill, of Aberbeeg, thought that he had never before heard singing with more feeling. Perhaps because of the choice of hymn, the emotion with which it was sung, or the predicament they were in, the women began to cry. As this would not do they enthusiastically struck up ‘Tipperary,’ and the ladies began to smile and then laughed. The song seemed to cheer everyone up and the tune was soon taken up by the people in the other boats which were floating about nearby.
Other accounts of the sinking state that the choir members also sang Abide With Me and Pull For The Shore, Sailor, as well.
Obviously, Tom Williams did not give up hope for he was eventually rescued from the sea along with the others, by the Royal Naval trawler H.M.S. Indian Empire, and having been landed at Queenstown, he later toured the mortuaries searching in vain for the bodies of the three missing choir members, before eventually returning to South Wales.
The three missing men were George Davies, David Hopkins and Ike Jones and no sign of them was ever seen again!
Perhaps in defiance of the appalling events of 7th May 1915, the choir was reformed later in the year and in July, it returned to perform once more in America. According to W.G. Lloyd: -
As part of the new programme Tom Williams would give a graphic lecture describing the sinking of the Lusitania. Few collegians would have matched his oratory. When he finally described the singing of "Abide with me," after they had been in the water for some time, the other members of the party present on the platform could be heard to softly begin to sing the old song as he stood motionless. Was there a dry eye in the audience?
Nothing further is known about him.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, 1881 Census of England & Wales, 1891 Census of England & Wales, 1901 Census of
England & Wales, 1911 Census of England & Wales, New York Passenger Lists 1820 – 1957, U.S. Border Crossings from Canada to U.S. 1895 – 1960, Cunard Records, Roll of Honour, Western Mail, PRO BT 100/345, Graham Maddocks, Peter Patrick, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.