People on board

RUDDELL, Alfred

Alfred Ruddell was born about 1876 in Dublin to Samuel Ruddell and Sarah Walsh. Sarah was born in Broom Hedge, Co Antrim and Samuel was also probably from Northern Ireland. He was a Tobacconist / Tobacco Manufacturer, a trade that also included others of the name Ruddell, but the connections have not been made. Both families were Methodist. Samuel and Sarah had nine children between their marriage in Dublin in 1872 and 1886, but as all the children’s births were registered without forenames it is difficult to be sure of Alfred’s place in the family.

The family lived in Francis Street and later Dolphin’s Barn and they were in Heytesbury Street in 1901. At that stage Sarah was a widow and there were two daughters and four sons, including Alfred, living with her. He gave his occupation as ‘Clerk in Biscuit Factory’. In March 1902 Alfred married Josephine Bray in the Wesleyan Methodist church in Portobello. On the marriage certificate he gave his address as 6 Dolphin’s Barn (the family had previously been at number 7) and his occupation as ‘Under Manager’. A son, William Arthur, was born in 1903 apparently their only child.

Sarah Ruddell died in 1904 and by 1911 the family were scattered around Dublin, some having married. Alfred and Josephine were then living in Harold’s Cross and included in the family on census night were her widowed father and her sister, husband and daughter.

It is probable that Alfred, then described as ‘Factory Manager’ for W & R Jacob, Biscuit Manufacturers, was travelling on business on the 10th of October 1918. He survived the sinking of RMS Leinster but he died on the 2nd of November from Influenza and Pneumonia undoubtedly brought on by his time in the water. The address given on the death certificate was Ashdale, Terenure. His burial in Mount Jerome cemetery was organised by his brother Frederick who erected a headstone in Alfred’s memory, and, shortly afterwards, that of his own wife Hester.

Alfred’s son married in Dublin in 1930 and Josephine was in Lancashire in the 1939 Register with an unmarried sister. She died there in 1955 aged seventy-eight.