| Percival Booth-Jones Second Cabin Passenger Lost |
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| Born | John Percival Booth-Jones 4 October 1909 Bucklow, Cheshire, England, United Kingdom |
| Died | 7 May 1915 At sea, RMS Lusitania |
| Age on Lusitania | 5 |
| Traveling with | –Edward Booth-Jones (father) –Millichamp Booth-Jones (mother) –Ailsa Booth-Jones (sister) -Albert Smith (family friend) -Gladys Smith (family friend) -Dorothy Smith (family friend) |
| Body number | Not recovered or identified |
| Citizenship | British |
| Residence | Richmond, Surrey (now Greater London), England, United Kingdom |
Percival Booth-Jones (1909 – 1915), 5, was a British subject residing in Richmond, Surrey (now Greater London), England, traveling aboard Lusitania with his parents, Edward and Millichamp Booth-Jones, and her older sister, Ailsa. Percival and Ailsa had entered the ship board deck races, with Ailsa winning many prizes. The entire family was lost in the Lusitania sinking of 7 May 1915.
Life
Percival was born on 4 October 1909 in Bucklow, Cheshire, England, United Kingdom. He was the son of Edward and Millichamp Booth-Jones (née Percival) and younger brother of Ailsa. The Booth-Jones family first lived on Prospect House, Strines, Marple, a suburb of Manchester, England. Edward Booth-Jones was a respected antiques dealer with shops in St. Anne’s Square, Manchester, and Chester and Bond Street, London. Ailsa and Percival both attended Friends’ School of Green and School Lanes.
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. There, they lived 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. During their time in America, 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.
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 family graves in Conway, Wales, where Edward was from.
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, Master Percival John.” Peter’s Lusitania Page. Published 11 June 2017. Web. <https://lusitaniapage.wordpress.com/2017/06/11/booth-jones-master-percival-john/>. 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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