People on board

EDDY, Samuel James Lewis

Samuel James Lewis Eddy was born in Pontypridd, Glamorgan, South Wales in 1897 to John Lewis Eddy and Mary Ann James. Samuel was the fifth of their twelve children, two of whom died in infancy. John was a Coal Miner on his marriage certificate in 1888 and again in the census of 1891 but by 1901 he gave his occupation as ‘Brickyard Labourer’ and in 1911 as ‘Council Labourer’. That year saw the three eldest sons as ‘Collier Coal Miner Hewer’ while Samuel and the younger children were at school or at home.

It is not known when Samuel Eddy enlisted in the Welsh Regiment, possibly early in the war. It was reported that he was wounded in April 1916, and by that stage he was a Corporal. In 1918 it was recorded that his battalion was ‘Depot’ which was in Cardiff so it is not known why he was in Ireland in October 1918. He travelled back to Wales on the 10th on RMS Leinster, the only member of the regiment on board. He did not survive the sinking but his body was recovered and he was buried in Grangegorman Military Cemetery in Dublin.

An older brother Ernest, who was with the 13th Battalion of the Welsh Fusiliers was killed in action in France in April 1918 and buried in Pozieres Cemetery. A first cousin, Emmanuel Thomas Eddy, also from Pontypridd was a Sergeant in the Welsh Fusiliers and died in Rhyl hospital in 1917, aged just nineteen. The names of all three are recorded on the Pontypridd War Memorial.