The first reports of the sinking of the Lusitania off Old Head at Kinsale were received in Manchester late on the 7th May, a Friday.
There was no word on the passengers and crew who numbered said reports 1,900.The ship said the first reports went down in about an hour. A wireless message was received at Lands end station from the ship stating ‘come at once, big list’
The Evening News brought out a special edition on the following Monday bringing the public up to date with the latest details. 820 people had so far been rescued but fifty had subsequently died after landing.
Survivors told of the horrors that took place, that few of the lifeboats were launched and as the ship quickly sank, hundreds were dragged down with it.
Among those missing Mr Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, the 38 year old son of Cornelius from whom he had inherited much of his wealth.
Harold Taylor had come over on the liner with his wife on honeymoon and visiting his father in Salford gave a graphic account of the disaster.He told that the lights were to be extinguished on the boat so that it could make a dash for Liverpool that Friday evening but the torpedoes struck that afternoon.He managed to get his wife onto the third lifeboat as the ship was already listing heavily.
He was on the deck when the ship went down and was sucked into one of the funnels, practically unconscious he was propped out and managed to grab an oar drifting into a lifeboat and was dragged on board by two ladies.
The boat was picked up by a destroyer and the passengers were taken to Queenstown where he was reunited with his wife who never expected to see him again.
There were other Manchester survivors, J.W MCConnell Vice President of the fine spinners association who had spent three hours in the water and Mrs William Campbell who was visiting her father in Moss Side, Mrs Martha Ann Wyatt from Ashton who was in the water for four and a half hours clinging to a buoy with another man and Mrs Secchinthe eldest daughter of the high bailiff of the Salford County Court.
So far 144 bodies had been recovered of which 87 had been identified.
The sinking of the boat had brought horror and revulsion amongst the Allied nations wit the Germans claiming that the boat was a fully armed auxiliary cruiser in some newspapers.
Winston Churchill announced a bird of trade inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the sinking telling the Commons that the Admiralty had had general knowledge that there had been a threat to sink the ship.
A meeting of butchers was being held in Manchester to discuss the crisis in the meat trade which was seeing the closing of small shops as a result of high meat prices.Prices had gone up on average around 30 per cent since the start of the war and customers were simply not prepared to pay the increases or if they bought at all it was in smaller quantities.
Although the new taxes on liquor had come into effect at the beginning of the month, it was reported that few license holdings In Manchester had increased their prices for consumption in the premises.Stocks had been enormously increased before Lloyd George’s measures came into play and ahead of the budget that week, it was widely assumed that the new duties would be reduced.
That week’s budget saw the Chancellor announce that so far the war had cost £307m and the national debt stood at £1,165m.Two million pounds would have to be paid in interest on money borrowed during the war which was costing around £2.1m per day to finance.
The priceof gas increased in the city by 6d per 1,000 cubic feet.The Manchester and Salford Sanitary association protested against the rise on the grounds that it would retard their efforts in the direction of smoke abatement.
The Spring assizes opened in Manchester, 33 defendants were due for trial, a smaller number than usual, including two for murder and six for assault.
One case that drew a lot of attention was that of Cecil Kay, managing director of the kay’s Atlas brewery and William Walker a superintendent in the city police force who were charged with six offences under the Public Bodies corrupt Practices Act.It was alleged that Kay had bribed Walker with six cases of whisky for him to turn a blind eye to license regulations across the 40-50 pubs that Kay’s Company ran in Manchester.
The death in action was announced of a Miles Plating man,Thomas Griffiths, formerly employed by the Manchester Corporation, he was killed during a rifle charge of Hill 60.He had previously served and had been wounded in the Boer War but had volunteered for service with his old regiment, the 1st kings Royal Rifles and had seen action at Givenxhy and Neuve Chappele.
That week the Prime Minsiter made a statement in the Commons on the Dardennels campaign in which he admitted that there had been a heavy death toll during the landings but that “ the operations were now being continually pressed forward under highly satisfactory conditions”
The death was announced of eighty three year old Nathan Ashton in Glodwick. He claimed descent from the first Earl of Assheton and worked in the local mill for z46 years. After reading he practiced as a phrenology set claiming to saved 300 people from committing suicide.
A new picture house café was opening on Market Street promising ‘beautiful furnishings and enriched with things that will delight the eye,the intellect and the appetite.’
