George Clinton, 28, was an able-bodied seaman of the Lusitania‘s deck department. He was a British subject and a survivor of the Lusitania disaster. This biography is made possible by a collaboration with Peter Kelly and the Merseyside Maritime Museum, Liverpool.
Clinton was born in South Shields, County Durham, England in 1887. He lived at 7 Kendrick Street, Seaforth, on the outskirts of Liverpool, Lancashire.
He was a professional mercantile marine seaman and on 12 April 1915 he engaged as an able seaman in the Deck Department on board the Lusitania, at a monthly rate of pay of £5-10s-0d (£5.50). He reported for duty on board the liner on the early morning of 17 April before she left Liverpool for the last time. It was not the first time that he had served on the vessel.
Having completed the first leg of her voyage to New York, he was on board on the afternoon of 7 May 1915, when she was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-20 within sight of the southern coast of Ireland and only 250 miles away from her Liverpool destination.
Having been rescued from the sea he was landed at Queenstown, from where he eventually made it back to his Seaforth home. Some time after that he was officially discharged from the Lusitania’sfinal voyage and received the sum of £5-2s-4d (£5.12), the balance of pay owing to him in respect of his sea service from 17 April to 8 May, 24 hours after the liner had been sunk.
A photograph of him standing on the quayside at Queenstown next to another crew survivor, Able Seaman Jack Roper, appeared in a weekly magazine called The Illustrated War News not long after the sinking.
References
George Clinton at the Merseyside Maritime Museum
Contributors
Peter Kelly, Ireland
Ellie Moffat, UK
References
Cunard Records
Illustrated War News
PRO BT 100/345.
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