William Edgar Mounsey was born in Crosthwaite, near Keswick, Westmorland, England, on the 13th July 1857, the son of Thomas and Jane Mounsey (née Edgar), and the youngest of ten known children. His father was an agricultural labourer.
At one time he was a coachman to a local dignitary, Dr. Gore Ring, and on the 15th November 1879, he married Fannie Sewell in Crosthwaite, and they had one son before they emigrated to the United States of America. They first settled in Iowa, and then Illinois and Indiana, before finally settling in Chicago, Illinois.
The family home was at 4420 Laporte Avenue. William ran a moving and express company on Milwaukee Avenue, named Mounsey Movers. They had nine children, six girls and three boys - John Thomas, Martha, Sarah Jane, George A., William E., Elizabeth, Ethel, Myrtle, and Bertha.
On 23rd January 1886, William took the first step in declaring his intention to become a naturalized citizen of the United States, but never completed the process, remaining, until his death, a British subject.
In early 1914, Fannie Mounsey had decided to make a visit to her native Keswick with two friends from Chicago. Consequently, on 28th May, they boarded the Canadian Pacific liner Empress of Ireland at Quebec, for the journey to Liverpool. In the early hours of the following morning, the liner was sunk in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, after colliding with the Norwegian vessel Storstad and Fannie Mounsey was reported missing.
Not long afterwards, however, strange rumours began to circulate in Chicago that she had somehow managed to survive the sinking and then made it to Liverpool - either because she had escaped the sinking, or she had crossed the Atlantic on a different liner. The rumours also stated that she had lost her memory in the process.
One event which no doubt fuelled these rumours, was the fact that there was, at about the right time, a woman bearing a resemblance to Fannie Mounsey, committed to a mental institution in Ormskirk near Liverpool, Lancashire, who not only claimed to be she, but also exhibited a mortal dread of water!
As a result, nearly one year after the family tragedy, William Mounsey, together with his daughter Sarah Lund and his son-in-law Charles Lund, booked second cabin passage on the Lusitania, to sail to Liverpool to try to establish once and for all, the veracity of the ‘mad woman’ story! They joined the vessel at Pier 54 in New York harbour on the morning of 1st May 1915, in time for her last ever sailing, which began just after noon.
Just six days later, the sea claimed William Mounsey as well; as he was killed after the Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-20. As his body was never found and identified, he, like his wife, has no known grave. He was aged 57 years.
On 27th May 1915, in response to an enquiry on the same day from Chicago, the Cunard office at Queenstown despatched a cable which simply stated: -
REGRET NO TRACE WILLIAM MOUNSEY SECOND CABIN
His son-in-law, Charles Lund, also perished in the sinking, although his daughter Sarah survived. She eventually got to Liverpool only to discover that the deranged woman in the mental institution was not, in fact, her mother!
William’s children later filed a claim with the U.S. State Department, seeking compensation for his personal belongings, valued at $458.00, which were lost on the Lusitania, and also for the loss of his life. As he was a British subject, the Mixed Claims Commission refused to make any award in respect of his personal belongings, but did award his daughter, Bertha, the sum of $7,500.00 in compensation for the loss of her father. She had been his housekeeper, and the only one of his children that could provide any proof that they were financially dependent upon him.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, England Select Births and Christenings 1538 – 1975, England Select Marriages 1538 – 1973, 1861 Census of England & Wales, 1871 Census of England & Wales, 1881 Census of England & Wales, 1900 U.S. Federal Census, 1910 U.S. Federal Census, Cunard Records, Mixed Claims Commission Docket No. 596, West Cumberland Times, Forgotten Empress, PRO BT 100/345, UniLiv. PR13/6, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.