People on board

CRUICKSHANKS, Alexander

Alexander Cruickshanks was born in Blackburn, Lancashire in 1896 to William Cruickshanks and Alice Ann Hargreaves. He was the seventh of their eight children, six of whom were alive in 1911. Alice Hargreaves was born in Lancashire but she was working in the Blantyre Dye Works in Lanarkshire, Scotland when in 1881 she married William Cruickshanks, a Scot, who was then a Journeyman Dyer in the same works. They had moved back to the village of Baxenden in Lancashire by 1883 when their first child was born. In the 1891 census they were living in the town of Blackburn where William worked as a ‘Yarn Dyer’ and Alice as a ‘Cotton Winder’, as well as having five young children.

By 1901 the three oldest were working as a Coal Carter, a Cotton Weaver and a Cotton Yarn Printer while William continued as a Dyer. In 1911 Alexander, aged sixteen, was working as a ‘Reed Maker Apprentice’. His youngest sister Janet, aged twelve, was ‘At School’ and a ‘Part-time Cotton Weaver’.

Alexander Cruickshanks was with the Royal Defence Corps, and one index says that he had previously been with the West Yorkshire Regiment, but this has not been confirmed elsewhere. In October 1918 he was with the 462nd Company in Ireland. Presumably returning home on leave he travelled on the 10th on RMS Leinster. He did not survive the sinking nor was his body recovered.

His name is recorded on the Hollybrook Memorial in Southampton and on the Blackburn Roll of Honour.