William Henry Winter was born in Coleraine, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, on the 21st December 1886, the only child of William Henry and Elizabeth Winter (née Williams). His father was a hotel proprietor, managing the Corporation Arms Hotel in Coleraine. In 1889, when William was aged three years, his father died and in 1895 his mother remarried, her second husband being Thomas Daly, who was a merchant in Coleraine.
William was educated at the Roebuck Masonic School, Roebuck, Clonskeagh, Dublin, which was a prestige boarding school for boys. On completing his education, he followed in the footsteps of his father by becoming a hotel proprietor. By 1911, he was the manager of the prestigious Great Northern Hotel, Bundoran, County Donegal.
In the 1st October 1914, he married Beatrice Grace Benison in Ballyshannon, and they set up home at “Springfield Lodge”, Bundoran. By this time, his mother who had been widowed for a second time lived at 7, Mount Pleasant Square, Ranelagh, Dublin.
By late 1914 or early 1915, he had left his position in Bundoran and found employment as Assistant Catering Superintendent for the Cunard Steam Ship Company. He moved with his wife to 25. Princes Avenue, Liverpool, and sailed on a number of the company’s trans-Atlantic liners in this professional capacity.
On the 17th April 1915, he boarded the Lusitania at the Prince’s Landing Stage in Liverpool as a saloon class passenger, a status no doubt given to him because of his professional position and on a list of saloon passengers held in the Public Record Office, he is described as a company’s official. He was on board again when the liner departed from the Cunard berth at Pier 54 in New York on the 1st May 1915. Six days out of that port, on the afternoon of 7th May, the Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk off the coast of southern Ireland by the German submarine U-20, under the command of Kapitänleutnant Walther Schwieger, only about twelve or fourteen house steaming time away from her Liverpool destination.
Although William Winter did not survive the sinking, he did play a part in helping to assist others to safety. Stewards' Bell Boy Robert Clarke was a survivor of the disaster and told an account of his experiences which was published in The Bootle Times on 14th May 1915. He told of being made to get into a lifeboat by Assistant Superintendent Caterer Winter who said to him: -
Get into the boat sonny, you are only a bit of a kid yet.
When Clarke urged Winter to get into the boat himself, he replied: -
I've got plenty of work to do shoving out the next boats. Good-bye, boys, and good luck.
Another saloon passenger, Mr. Charles Hardwick of Newark, New Jersey, U.S.A., mentioned Mr. Winter in an interview with his local newspaper, The Newark Evening News. He said: -
I was talking with Mr. Winters (sic) of the Cunard Line when the ship was hit. Winters got into boat No. 17, which overturned and then swam to boat No. 19. Most of the passengers were eating luncheon and the proportion saved was small.
Winter’s corpse was eventually recovered from the sea on the evening of 21st May 1915 at a place called Tirkale in County Kerry, about 80 miles from where the Lusitania had foundered. At first it was thought to be the body of a victim named Daly, for fairly obvious reasons. The southern Irish newspaper The Cork Examiner took up the story in its morning edition of Saturday 22nd May:-
The body found last night at Tirkale was that of a man believed named Daly from a letter found on him, addressed to Mrs. Daly, Mount Pleasant Square, Ranelagh Road, Dublin and commencing, “My own darling mother,”.
He was about 30 years of age, 5 feet 10 inches in height, dark hair and
moustache, prominent lips and cheek bones, appeared to be an official on the ship, had a silver matchbox inscribed “W.H.W.,” and about £15 in notes and gold. He was well preserved.
The body eventually proved to be that of William H. Winter, not a man believed named Daly and Mount Pleasant Square in Dublin was his mother’s home. On learning off the sinking, William Winter’s wife, Beatrice, travelled to Dublin to wait for any news of him with her mother-in-law.
William Winter’s body was placed in a coffin at Tirkale and sent by road to nearby Garnish and from there to Castletown, about fifteen miles away further, to await the boat appointed by Cunard to search for and recover corpses from the sinking. Such was the emotion engendered by the tragedy, that when the coffin, with five others also recovered from the sea arrived at the village, hundreds of people were lining the roadsides in respectful homage! The six coffins were then joined by a seventh, (another recovered victim of the sinking) and having been put on board the Queenstown harbour tender Flying Fish, they were taken round the coast to Queenstown, on the early morning of 22nd May. Once there, they were delivered to the Cunard Wharf before taken to the temporary mortuary set up there.
The corpse of William Winter was given the reference number 228, although by this time, it had probably been positively identified, as not long afterwards, Mrs. Winter and Mrs. Daly in Dublin were informed that the body had been recovered and on 22nd May, it was despatched to Dublin for interment. Cunard records show that this was communicated in a telegram sent on 22nd May: -
"HAVE SENT BODY MR. WINTER TO DUBLIN REQUEST WIFE AND MOTHER."
He was buried in Grave 24, Section A, in what has now been re-designated Sub-division 279, in Mount Jerome Protestant Cemetery in Dublin, on 25th May 1915, eighteen days after he had been killed. He was aged 28 years. The headstone over his grave states: -
In Loving Memory
OF
MY DEAR HUSBAND
WILLIAM H. WINTER
WHO DIED 7TH MAY 1915,
AGED 28 YEARS.
DROWNED BY SINKING OF THE
“LUSITANIA”.
The property recovered from his body was sent to his widow in Ranelagh, Dublin, on 2nd June 1915. Cunard records show this to be:-
Found in possession 8 sovereigns in gold, 3 half sovereigns in gold, 4d, 2 flat gold rings, 1 5 cent piece, 1 £5 Bank of England Note, 1 metal watch with black back with light gold chain, 3d and 4d attached, 1 pencil case and match box also attached, W.H.W. on match box, 1 fountain pen, 1 bunch of keys, cards bearing name W.H. Winter, blank cheque Belfast Banking Co, Ltd., some papers and cards.
At about the same time, a Mrs. Daly, presumably William Winter’s mother made application to The Lusitania Relief Fund, for financial help. This fund had been set up immediately after the liner had gone down, by The Lord Mayor of Liverpool and other
local business dignitaries to help second and third class passenger survivors and the relatives of those who had perished, who had come upon hard times as a result of the sinking. It was thought that saloon class passengers were wealthy enough not to need help and each claim was met on its merits.
Her application was turned down, however, on the grounds that The Cunard Steam Ship Company was already assisting her daughter-in-law!
Although William Winter was a career officer in the Mercantile Marine, he was not actually serving on board as a crew member when the Lusitania was sunk, so his death is not officially recorded by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
The Liverpool and London War Risks Insurance Association Limited granted a yearly pension to Beatrice Winter which amounted to £83-6s-8d. (£83.33½p.) which was payable at the rate of £6-18s-11d. (£6.94½p.) per month.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, 1901 Census of Ireland, 1911 Census of Ireland, New York Passenger Lists 1820 – 1957, Cunard Records, Bootle Times, Cork Examiner, Daily Express, Newark Evening News, Liverpool Record Office, PRO 22/71, PRO BT 100/345, UniLiv.D92/1/8-11, UniLiv D92/2/88, UniLiv D92/2/416, UniLiv. PR13/6, UniLiv. PR 13/24, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.