Thomas Kelly was stated to have been born in St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada, in 1889, but nothing is known of his life or when he came to England.
At the time that he engaged as a fireman in the Engineering Department on board the Lusitania, he was living at the Liverpool Sailors’ Home.
This engagement occurred at Liverpool, on the 14th April 1915, at a monthly rate of pay of £6-10s.-0d. (£6.50p.), £1-0s.-0d. of which was advanced to him at the time. He reported for duty three days later, at 8 a.m. on the 17th April; in time for the vessel’s last ever voyage out of the River Mersey. It was not the first time that he had served as a fireman on the Cunarder.
Three weeks later, he was killed when the liner was torpedoed and sunk in sight of the coast of southern Ireland and only hours away from her Liverpool destination. He was aged 26 years. As his body was never recovered and identified afterwards, he is commemorated on the memorial to the Missing of the Mercantile Marine, at Tower Hill, in London.
The records of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission state that Fireman Thomas Kelly had been married to an Ann Kelly, (née Harvey) and the family home was at 39, Torbock Street. This appears to have been a transcribing error from the original records and refers to Trimmer Thomas Edward Kelly, who served as John Manning, and who also lost his life in the sinking.
Despite his place of birth, Thomas Kelly does not appear on the memorial to the dead of the Newfoundland Mercantile Marine of the Great War, in Newfoundland Park at Beaumont Hamel on the Somme, in France. This may be because he was not serving on a Newfoundland vessel at the time he was killed.
Cunard Records, Commonwealth War Graves Commission, PRO BT 100/345, PRO BT 334, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.
Revised & Updated – 4th February 2024.