Wilfred George Fairhurst was born in Lymm, Cheshire, on the 5th April 1885, the son of George Aaron and Sarah Annie Fairhurst (née Seabridge). He was the eldest of two children, having a younger sister named Gertrude, and his father was a bank cashier who later established his own business as a piano dealer and tuner.
While he was still a child, his family moved from Grappenhall, Cheshire, to 319. Staney Road, Bootle, Liverpool, Lancashire, and in his teenage years, Wilfred commenced his apprenticeship as a mechanical engineer.
He first joined The Cunard Steamship Company in 1906 as a junior engineer and served on the Carpathia, the Lusitania, the Mauretania, and the Sylvania, all the time gaining experience and promotion.
He married Margaret Maria Pattison, who herself came from a seafaring family, many of her relatives being sea-going engineers for Cunard, on the 6th January 1909, at St. Andrews Church, Bootle, Liverpool. They set up home at 5, Morningside, Great Crosby, Liverpool, Lancashire, and on the 8th July 1910, their only child, Neville Percil Fairhurst was born.
It was whilst serving on the Carpathia on the 15th April 1912 that Wilfred Fairhurst’s ship helped to rescue survivors from the ill-fated White Star liner Titanic, which had struck an iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean and sunk, during her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York. Afterwards, along with other members of the Carpathia’s crew Wilfred Fairhurst was presented with a medal, a gold watch, and other honours, in recognition of the rescue.
On the 12th April 1915, at Liverpool, he engaged as First Intermediate Third Engineer in the Engineering Department on board the Lusitania and reported for duty five days later before the Cunarder left the River Mersey for the last time. His monthly rate of pay for the job was £15-0s.-0d.
He was killed three weeks later when the ship was sunk and 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, London. He was aged 30 years.
On the 1st July 1915, administration of his estate was granted to his widow, Margaret, and his effects amounted to £274-14s.-4d., (£274.72p). In August 1915, the balance of wages owing to him in respect of his sea service were also sent to her. This period was reckoned from the 17th April until the 8th May 1915, 24 hours after the liner had been sunk. In addition, The Liverpool and London War Risks Insurance Association Limited granted a yearly pension to Margaret Fairhurst to compensate her for the loss of her husband. This amounted to £82-8s.-6d. (£82.42½p.) which was payable at the rate of £6-17s.-5d. (£6.87p.) per month.
Soon after the sinking, Margaret and Neville Fairhurst moved to 'Ravensdal', Stuart Road, Great Crosby, which was the home of Mrs. Fairhurst’s father, John Shearer Pattison, who himself had retired as Chief Engineer of the Cunard Company in 1910.
His name was also engraved on a brass plaque belonging to The Liverpool Branch of The Marine Engineers’ Association which used to be in The Britannia Rooms in The Cunard Building in Liverpool. Underneath the badge of the association was engraved: -
ROLL OF HONOUR
LIVERPOOL BRANCH
A TRIBUTE TO THE MEMORY OF
THE MEMBERS, WHO LOST THEIR LIVES
THROUGH ENEMY ACTION IN THE
GREAT WAR. 1914 - 1919
and then followed the names of the 226 former members.
The memorial is not in the building today, however and its present whereabouts, if it has survived, are not known.
Register of Births, Marriages, and Deaths, Cheshire England Select Bishop’s Transcripts 1576 – 1933, 1891 Census of England, 1901 Census of England, 1911 Census of England, Cunard Records, Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Liverpool Echo, Marine Engineers’ Association Journal, Probate Records, PRO BT 334, PRO BT 351/1/43075, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, George Donnison, Neville Fairhurst, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.
Revised & Updated – 10th November 2023.