People on board

HOWARD, Peter

Peter Howard was born in Southport, Lancashire in 1894 to John Howard and Isabella Foster, the fourth of their five children living in 1911, two others having died young. John Howard was a Farm Labourer in the 1881 census when he and his new wife were living with Isabella’s sister and her husband in North Meols. By 1891 they had their own household, John was a Warehouseman and Isabella worked as a Laundress. The family had moved to High Park Road in Southport by 1901, where they remained. In this census John gave his occupation as ‘Labourer at Electricity Works’ while the eldest son John gave his as ‘Golf Caddie’. Meanwhile the eldest daughter Nannie had joined her mother as a Laundress.

By 1911 John Snr. had become a Coal Dealer and John Jnr. was a ‘Motor Frame Maker’.  Peter, then aged eighteen, was assisting his father in his coal business. In February 1916 John Jnr died at the age of twenty-eight and was buried in St Cuthbert’s Churchyard in Halsall.. Peter Howard enlisted in The King’s (Liverpool) Regiment at Southport in late 1915 and in October 1918 he was a Corporal in the 3rd Reserve Battalion, a Training Unit which was in Ireland from 1917.

According to the Southport Visiter of the 12th of October Peter Howard had been “engaged as an instructor in Cork” and “had been home on special leave just three weeks before”. He travelled on RMS Leinster on the 10th of October, whether for further leave or for posting is not known. He did not survive the sinking but his body was recovered and he was buried in Grangegorman Military Cemetery in Dublin.

His name is recorded on the Crossens War Memorial Cross in Southport and also on the family grave in St Cuthbert’s Churchyard.