People on board

LEE, James Joseph

James Joseph Lee was born on the 12th of March 1893 in Toxteth Park, Liverpool and baptised on the 15th in St Patrick’s Catholic Church. His father, John born in Dublin, and mother Ada Moore, born in Liverpool, had married in 1887. James was the third of their surviving seven children, four more children dying in infancy. John Lee was a ‘Coal Heaver’ in 1901 and a ‘Dock Labourer’ in 1911. That year James, aged eighteen, gave his occupation as a General Labourer.

An older brother John enlisted in Prince Albert’s Own Hussars but was killed at Ypres on the 24th of May 1915. His name is recorded on the Menin Gate. James Lee enlisted in The King’s (Liverpool) Regiment and landed in France on the 15th of May 1915, possibly with the 11th Battalion. It is not known if he was wounded in France but by October 1918 he had been transferred to the 3rd Reserve Battalion, in Ireland since 1917.

Presumably returning home on leave Joseph Lee travelled on RMS Leinster on the 10th of October. 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 Merseyside Roll of Honour, as is that of his brother John. Their father John also died in 1918 aged fifty-five.