People on board

BAKER, Richard

Richard Baker was born in 7 Lower Georges St., Kingstown on the 27th January 1886 to John Baker and Annie Daly. Married in 1885, John was a Sailor as was his father Michael. Two more sons were born, Edward and John. Then on Christmas Eve 1895 came the shipwreck of the SS Palme and the subsequent disaster of the capsizing of the Kingstown lifeboat. The crew of the lifeboat were all lost, including John Baker, at the age of 33.

In the 1901 census the three boys were living with their widowed mother in Sussex St., Kingstown where she was keeping boarders. Annie Baker died in 1910, at the age of 42, and the following year Richard married Hannah Doran in St Michael’s church in Kingstown. They were listed in the 1911 census in the house in Sussex St, along with younger brother John and several boarders. What seems to have been their only child, John Christopher, was born in 1912. At that stage Richard was working as a carpenter, but sometime in the following few years he began working with the CDSPCo and was working as a 3rd Steward on the RMS Leinster on the 10th October.

Richard survived the sinking and seems to have prospered. In 1957 he was applying for the renewal of his Bookmaker’s Licence, and the address on his death certificate in July 1960 was Eblana House, Eblana Avenue in Kingstown, and he was described as a ‘Retired business man’. Richard is buried in Deansgrange cemetery alongside his parents John and Annie and his wife Hannah, who lived until 1974.