| Edward Booth-Jones Second Cabin Passenger Lost |
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| [No Picture Provided] | |
| Born | Edward Jones 28 March 1876 Conway (Conwy), Wales, United Kingdom |
| Died | 7 May 1915 At sea, RMS Lusitania |
| Age on Lusitania | 39 |
| Traveling with | –Millichamp Booth-Jones (wife) –Ailsa Booth-Jones (daughter) –Percival Booth-Jones (son) -Albert Smith (family friend) -Gladys Smith (family friend) -Dorothy Smith (family friend) |
| Body number | Not recovered or identified |
| Occupation | Art and antiques dealer |
| Citizenship | British |
| Residence | Richmond, Surrey (now Greater London), England, United Kingdom |
Edward Booth-Jones (1876-1915), 39, was a British subject and antiques dealer residing in Richmond, Surrey (now Greater London), England, traveling aboard Lusitania with his wife Millichamp Booth-Jones and their children, Ailsa and Percival. They were also traveling with family friends Alfred and Gladys Smith and their daughter, Dorothy. Both entire families were lost in the Lusitania sinking of 7 May 1915.
Early life and career
Edward Booth-Jones was born Edward Jones on 28 March 1876 in Conway (Conwy), Wales, United Kingdom. He was the son of John and Sarah Jones of Rhos-on-Sea, Denbighshire, Wales, and had at least one brother, Griffiths. John Jones was a well-known agriculturalist and animal breeder. Sarah’s family owned Dinarth Hall in Colwyn Bay, North Wales.
Edward did not want to go into the family business, so he started working in the auctioneer trade. He worked at Hall, Wateridge and Owen in Shrewsbury, where he met his future wife, Millichamp Letton Percival. Edward and Millichamp were married on 22 March 1902 in the Parish Church in Millichamp’s hometown of Newtown, Montgomeryshire (now in Powys), Wales, when they were both 25. By this time, Edward was a dealer in antiquities and art and lived at Cedar Grove in Manchester, the city to which he had moved his business. Around this time, Edward decided to hyphenate his last name, perhaps to give himself a higher perceived social status.
Edward and Millichamp’s first born, their daughter Ailsa Georgina, was born to them at the old cottage on 19 December 1906 in Bowdon, Cheshire, England. A son, John Percival, was born to them on 4 October 1909. The Booth-Jones family lived on Prospect House, Strines, Marple, a suburb of Manchester, England.
In Cheshire’s county town of Chester, Edward bought the Old Bishop’s Palace to set up his antiques and art business. He would later also purchase Penrhyn Old Hall in Llandudno, Wales. Edward expanded his business to shops in St. Anne’s Square, Manchester, and Chester and Bond Street, London. He sent Ailsa and Percival both to Friends’ School of Green and School Lanes.
Moving for business
Edward decided to concentrate on the West End business in London on Bond Street, and so with sadness the Booth-Jones family left Marple for London around May 1914. Coincidentally, Bond Street is the same street where another Lusitania victim, Edgar Gorer, also had set up an antique shop. The Booth-Jones’s new home was at No. 3, Old Palace Terrace, The Green, Richmond, in Surrey. Though Edward’s business was successful, the war was starting to hurt the art market, so in October 1914, the Booth-Joneses moved to Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. They stayed with Dr. and Mrs. McCarthy of 136 Price Street in Germantown. While in America, Booth-Jones set up his antiques shop on 5727 Germantown Avenue and held private sales in galleries in Philadelphia and New York. During their stay, the Booth-Joneses traveled to Atlantic City to enjoy building sand castles on the beach.
In the spring of 1915, the Booth-Joneses were to return England and booked passage aboard Lusitania for 1 May 1915, on what later proved to be Lusitania‘s last crossing. Before they sailed, they stayed in New York’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel and had their family portrait taken. Ailsa gave a copy of their portrait to Harry Zehner, one of the Waldorf’s assistant managers. That picture would then later be published around the world to represent the tragedy and barbarity of the Lusitania sinking.
The Booth-Jones family could have booked saloon cabin (first class) aboard Lusitania, but they chose second cabin to sail with their family friends, Albert and Gladys Smith and their infant daughter Dorothy in second cabin. Albert Smith was art dealer for Ackermann & Sons.
Lusitania
During the Lusitania‘s last voyage, Percival and Ailsa entered many sports and games that had been organized for the children’s amusement. Ailsa was a winner of these games and showed off these prizes to Ian Holbourn and Avis Dolphin (Preston, pg 184).
The German submarine U-20, under the command of Captain-lieutenant Walther Schwieger, torpedoed Lusitania on the afternoon of 7 May 1915. The Lusitania sank in 18 minutes. Both the entire Booth-Jones and Smith families were lost in the Lusitania sinking.
First reports had said that the children had survived, leading Edward’s brother Griffiths to travel to Queenstown to search for them. Arriving at the Imperial Hotel in Cork, Ireland, he placed the following advertisement in the Cork Examiner:
Wanted: any information regarding a girl of eight years, light-golden hair, blue eyes, nice complexion, very pretty, named Ailsa Booth Jones: also a boy, aged 5, short black hair, short stature, rather thin face, named Percival Booth Jones, believed to have been saved from the Lusitania. Any information that will lead to their recovery will be great fully received.
Helen Secchi of New York said that during the sinking, she had seen both Edward and Millichamp Booth-Jones in the doorway of the cabin putting on their lifebelts, but not the children, who were presumably on deck when the torpedo hit.
A surviving Lusitania steward told the Scarborough Mercury in June 1915 that when he was in the water, he came across a boy in the water and lifted him onto a plank the steward was holding on to. The boy kept crying and the steward kept talking to him to try to comfort him, and the steward believes that the boy saved his life by helping him forget his own troubles. A gentlemen then drifted by, saying that he was the boy’s father. The steward continued to talk to the boy and the father, but the father succumbed to exposure ten minutes later, and the boy two hours after that. When there was no hope of reviving him, the steward kissed the child and the child sank. The steward recognized the father and son as being Edward and Percival Booth-Jones from later pictures.
Only Ailsa and Millichamp’s bodies were recovered or identified. Memorials were dedicated to the family both at Ailsa and Millichamp’s burial site in Queenstown and at the Jones family graves in Conway, Wales. Of Edward’s former properties, Penrhyn Old Hall is now a hotel and public house (advertising itself to be among the most haunted in the UK), and the Old Bishop’s Palace, formerly offices, was retrofitted in 2017 and converted into a hotel and wedding venue.
Links of interest
Antiques Dealer and Family Lost in Disaster – Gare Maritime
Contributors:
Cliff Barry, UK
Peter Clarke, UK
Peter Engberg-Klarström, Sweden
Jim Kalafus, USA
Peter Kelly, Ireland
Brandon Whited
References:
Barry, Cliff and Peter Kelly. “Antiques Dealer and Family Lost in Disaster.” Gare Maritime. Web. Published 7 May 2015. <https://www.garemaritime.com/antiques-dealer-family-lost-disaster/>. Accessed 11 May 2020.
Clarke, Peter. “Marple’s Lusitania Connection.” The Marple Website. Web. 27 July 2011. <http://www.marple-uk.com/lusitaniax.htm>.
Engberg-Klarström, Peter. “Booth-Jones, Miss Ailsa Georgina.” Peter’s Lusitania Page. Published 11 June 2017. Web. <https://lusitaniapage.wordpress.com/2017/06/11/booth-jones-miss-ailsa-georgina/>. Accessed 10 May 2020.
Hickey, Des and Gus Smith. Seven Days to Disaster. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1981. Pages 70, 271, 286.
Preston, Diana. Lusitania: An Epic Tragedy. Berkley Books, 2002. Pages 184, 280, 298.
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