People on board

CRANGLE, Patrick 

Patrick Crangle was born in 1876, the eldest of six children, to Patrick Crangle and Catherine Donaghy. They lived in the village of Killough, near Downpatrick, in Co. Down, on the shore of Irish Sea. Patrick Snr. was a Master Mariner and in June 1890 on the barque Amaranth en route from Belfast to Quebec there was an accident and he died. The Quebec death record said that he drowned. By the 1901 census the family, widow Catherine, Patrick Jnr. now 24 and a Ship’s Officer and his four sisters (one had died young), were living in Belfast close to the docks area.

Patrick served on the brigantine Cave Hill from which he was shipwrecked and in 1902 he joined the CDSPCo, serving mainly on the RMS Ulster in his first years. He was on the RMS Leinster with Captain Newton in Kingstown Harbour in the 1911 census. His mother and sisters had moved by then to England and were listed in the 1911 UK census at 275 Edge Lane in Liverpool, which remained their home. In November 1915 Patrick married Anne Clancy, daughter of a Shipbuilder, from Crofton Avenue in Kingstown, and their first child, Patrick Gerard was born in 1917. They lived at Cosy Nook, 4 Summerhill, Glasthule.

On the 10th October 1918 Patrick Crangle was serving as First Officer on the RMS Leinster. When the torpedo struck he was in his cabin making up the crew’s pay sheets. He directed getting two lifeboats away before the second torpedo struck and he was thrown into the water, where he was hauled into one of the boats and ultimately was brought ashore by HMS Lively. As the surviving senior officer, he reported by letter the following day to the Managing Director of the Company and gave evidence at an Inquest hearing the following week, this despite both his legs being injured.

A second child, Francis Noel, was born to Patrick and Annie in December 1919, but Patrick never fully recovered. He died in August 1925, just 49 years old, to be followed just two years later by Annie. They are both buried in Deansgrange cemetery. His mother Catherine lived on in Liverpool until 1934.