People on board

WILLIAMS, Richard

Richard Williams was born about 1865 in Holyhead to Richard and Jane Williams. From at least the early 1890s he was working for the City of Dublin Steam Packet Co, initially as a Fireman, then a Seaman. In the 1911 census he was on board a ship in the North Docks in Dublin as Third Mate. In 1915 he was Bosun on RMS Connaught, which had been requisitioned by the British Navy as a troop carrier. It was sunk by a German submarine in the English Channel but all except three of her crew were rescued, including Richard Williams.

In 1893 he married Catherine Lewis in Bangor Cathedral and in 1901 they were living at Mill Bank in Holyhead. In 1905 their only child, Richard, was born and in the 1911 census they were together in 9 Rock Street, while Richard Snr. was at sea. He was working as a Seaman on RMS Leinster on the 10th of October 1918 and he did not survive the sinking. His body was not recovered but he is remembered on the family grave in Maeshyfryd cemetery in Holyhead. He is also commemorated on a memorial plaque in Tabernacle Chapel and on the War Memorial in Holyhead. He received the Mercantile Marine Medal and the British War Medal.

In 1939 his son Richard married Dorothy Rowlands, daughter of Gunner Evan Rowlands who had survived the sinking.