HILDA MARY STONES (NEE JOY) DROWNED 7th MAY 1915 AGED 33
HILDA
MARY STONES (NEE JOY) DROWNED 7th MAY 1915 AGED 33
On the 1st May 1915 the 31.000 ton Cunard
Liner RMS Lusitania with 1962 passenger’s crew left New York harbour bound for
the Port of Liverpool. The Lusitania had made the crossing regularly and this
was the 202 time that she had made the voyage across the Atlantic. Seven days
later and steaming at 18 knots the ship approached the Irish coast near to the
lighthouse at Kinsale for the final leg of her journey. At 2.10 pm Kaptain
Walther Schweiger the commander of the German U-Boat U20 saw the Lusitania
through his periscope and ordered a torpedo to be fired even though he knew
that the ship was unarmed and carrying civilian passengers. Several people on
the deck of the ship saw the track of the approaching torpedo which hit the Lusitania
on the starboard side causing a violent explosion which rocked the ship. As
seawater rushed in through a gaping hole Lusitania took on a severe list and
within just eighteen minutes the bow was touching the seabed. Chaos and
pandemonium reigned on the stricken liner made all the worse because few life
boats could be launched from the sinking ship and within minutes the huge ship
foundered taking with it 1198 men, women and children. Amongst the passengers
on that fateful where a young married couple Norman and Mary Stones who were
returning to Yorkshire from Vancouver in Canada.
Hilda Mary Stones (nee Joy) was born in September
1882 the daughter of Augustus Bowdin Joy and his wife Elizabeth (nee Brumfitt)
who lived at 8 Middleton Terrace which was on what is now Middleton Road. Both
the Joy and Brumfitt families had long standing connections with the licensed
trade and variously owned the The Listers Arms, The Crescent and Midland
Hotels. At the time of Mary’s birth Augustus was the brewer at The Ilkley
Brewing Company which was attached to the rear of The Listers Arms on Cunliffe
Road and which he part owned with his uncle Orlando Joy. Something of an
inventor he patented a number of improvements to the design of beer taps and
stoppers and seem to have achieved some success in the brewing industry.
However, the death of Orlando saw the business begin to struggle and eventually
Augustus was declared bankrupt. The trauma caused by the failure of the
business may have caused him to seek opportunities abroad and it appears that
he left Britain for America where employed as a night-watchman in Massachusetts
in 1899.
The departure of her husband seems to have awakened
an entrepreneurial spirit in Elizabeth who took a shop on Brook Street where
she sold fancy goods and eventually expanded in the ladies clothing and with
her daughter they lived above the shop. Mary clearly had an aptitude for the performing
arts and she features in local newspapers an actress and soprano. Initially,
she performed as an amateur in the many local theatres of Leeds and York but by
1910 she was singing semi-professionally under the stage name Rose Garden. The
following year more success followed and she turned fully professional with an
engagement in the West End.
It was at about this time that Mary met Norman
stones from Penistone near Sheffield. Norman also came from a family with connections
to the licensed trade and was a distant relation of the Brumfitt’s. A graduate
of Leeds University, like Mary he enjoyed performing on stage in amateur productions
and by 1911 was living at Tarn Villas on Cowpasture Road. It seem likely that
he and Mary met at family gathering in Ilkley although, she had now moved with
her mother to Cardigan Road in Leeds. The pair became engaged to be married but
Norman seems to have agreed to take up a position as a rancher in British
Columbia and he certainly left Britain soon after. However, the two were not to
be apart for long and the following year Mary travelled across by boat across
the Atlantic and she and Norman were married in Christchurch, Vancouver on 12th
July 1912. After their wedding the two newlyweds travelled to Texada Island in
Vancouver Sound where Norman worked as a farmer.
At the beginning of 1915 Mary’s mother was reported
to be dangerously ill and the Norman and his wife decided to return to England
and booked 2nd class passage on the Lusitania. Norman had vowed to enlist into
the army and it seems that as a former member of Leeds Officer Training Corps
ne could seek officer entry via a territorial battalion of The Leeds Rifles.
Despite dramatic and dire warnings about the safety
of the ship by Germany the Lusitania’s journey had been largely uneventful.
Concerts and entertainment had continued on board the ship indeed the night
before the sinking Mary had sung the popular song ‘The Rosary’ to a packed
audience. The following day the peace was shattered by the torpedo fired by the
U20 and both Mary and Norman were forced
to flee the stricken ship, it was during their escape that sadly Mary drowned
and her loss was described by her husband who was fortunate to survive.
In an account published by the Ilkley Gazette some
days after the sinking, Norman recalled that he and Mary had seen the track of
the torpedo and experienced its shuddering impact. The crew had advised the
passengers that there was no immediate danger bur despite this advice Norman
had assisted others to prepare lifeboats for launching. The ships sudden list
to starboard and the difficulty in launching the lifeboats convinced him that
both he and Mary should make their own way overboard and rely on life jackets
to save them. Realising that his wife’s heavy clothes might drag her beneath
the waves he asked that she remove all her outer clothes down to her underwear
before donning the life preserver. Norman recounted that his wife passed to him
a large amount of cash that she had kept in her purse and handed it to him for
safe keeping. The Lusitania gave a sudden lurch as it began to sink and this
made their escape all the more imperative. Mary descended down a rope into the
sea and Norman followed close behind hoping that they could swim away from the
ships side but as they reached the waves the liner sank and the suction pulled
both of them downwards. After a few minutes Norman rose to the surface and he
managed to find a wooden deck chair which he clung to, but of Mary, there was
no sign. Norman was eventually rescued from the sea a few our later but Mary’s
body was never found.
Norman Stones eventually returned to Yorkshire where
enlisted into the army eventually rising to the rank of Captain and in 1918 was
awarded the Military Cross for bravery.
Hilda Mary Stones has no known grave except the sea
and is commemorated on the Lusitania Memorial at Cobh (Queenstown) in Ireland
but not here in Ilkley
Norman Stones
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