People on board

ROBERTS, William

William Roberts was born in Amlwch, Anglesey in 1873, the second of the five children of George Roberts and Jane Davies. George was a Labourer, and in the 1881 census, a ‘Copper Smelter’. By the 1891 census William was no longer at home in Amlwch and there are census records of two young men around Anglesey as Seamen, and the National Archives of Ireland Shipping Lists show a William, Holyhead, from 1888 working with the City of Dublin Steam Packet Co on the mailboats. It is not possible to identify him positively.

William Roberts did marry in Holyhead in 1905, probably to Mary Roberts, and they had a daughter Lizzie Jane that year. In the 1911 census the family of three were living in Wian Street, off London Road in Holyhead, when William gave his occupation as Seaman. It is believed that the couple had another child between then and 1918.

William Roberts was employed as a Seaman on RMS Leinster on the 10th of October 1918. He did not survive the sinking, nor was his body recovered. He is remembered on the War Memorial in Holyhead and on the Tower Memorial in London. He received the Mercantile Marine Medal and the British War Medal.