People on board

BOWER, Marion née Hydes

Marion Hydes was born in 1888, the fourth daughter of Mark William Hydes and Charlotte Elizabeth Speed, one of their nine children. In the 1891 census Mark Hydes was a ‘Tallow Refiner’, though later he was described as an ‘India Rubber Merchant’. Both parents were born in Yorkshire but the family grew up in West Derby, Liverpool. In March 1914 she married John Birrell Bower, a General Merchant and son of a Shipbroker, in Knotty Ash, Liverpool. Their marriage notice in the Liverpool Echo included the information that their “At Home” would be on April 23 and 24 at Thornbury, Thomas Lane, Broadgreen.

A son, Peter Donald was born on the 7th of March 1916 at 34 Dudley Road, Wavertree. It is not known why Marion Bower and her young child were in Ireland and travelling on RMS Leinster on the 10th of October. John Bower was not with them on board the ship though he was in Dublin to identify the body of his wife. Her body was one of the early ones to be recovered after the sinking, but no trace was found of Peter. On the 15th a notice was published in the Irish Times:

Missing from Torpedoed Mail Steamer BABY BOY, aged 2½ years, looks 3¼. Fair hair, brown eyes. Any information to Bower, 124 Rathgar Road, Dublin

but this yielded no results. Marion’s body was brought back to Liverpool and after a church service was interred in Allerton cemetery.

In 1924 John Bower remarried, to Hilda Thatcher who had been a witness at his marriage to Marion Hydes, and daughter of the clergyman who had performed that ceremony. John and Hilda had two children, and were living in Crosby at the time of the 1939 Register.