Mr. Joseph Patrick Huston (Joseph Robb), Able-Bodied Seaman

Joseph Patrick Huston (1890 -1915), 24, was a British subject and deck crew member employed as part of the deck department on the last voyage of the Lusitania. Huston was signed onto the ship as “Joseph Robb.” He was lost when the ship was torpedoed and sunk on 7 May 1915. His body was recovered, #51, and buried in Queenstown (now Cobh), Ireland, in the Old Church Cemetery.

This biography is made possible by Peter Kelly and a collaboration with the Merseyside Maritime Museum.

Biography


Joseph Patrick Huston was born in Bootle, Lancashire, in 1890, the son of Joseph and Elizabeth Huston.

He engaged at Liverpool as an able seaman in the Deck Department on board the Lusitania on 14 April 1915 at a monthly rate of pay of £5-10s-0d, (£5.50p.).  At his time of engagement he was advanced £1-10s-0d, (£1.50p) of this wage and joined the vessel before she left Liverpool landing stage for the final time, on the morning of 17 April.  For some reason, he engaged under the name of Joseph Robb.

His body was amongst the first to be recovered from the sea afterwards, and it was delivered to Queenstown where it was given the reference number 51, in one of the temporary mortuaries there.  Once a positive identification was made, however, he was buried on 10 May 1915, in the Old Church Cemetery, Queenstown, in Mass Grave C, Row 5, Upper Tier.  This was the date upon which most of the victims of the sinking were buried, following a long funeral procession which began outside Cunard’s office at Lynch Quay, on the waterfront at Queenstown.

Despite the fact that Able Seaman Huston has an identifiable burial site, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission was not aware of the fact and after the Great War, commemorated him on the Mercantile Marine Memorial to the Missing at Tower Hill, London under his actual name.

However, once historian Peter Kelly had established beyond doubt that he was buried in The Old Church Cemetery, the Commission agreed to erect a permanent memorial to him where he is buried, and this was done in November 1998.

It takes the form of a monument of Irish limestone, sited at the head of Mass Grave B, the centre one of the three.  The names of crew members buried in the three mass graves are incised on two black granite panels on the memorial, with a legend in between them, which reads:

1914 – 1918

IN HONOURED MEMORY

OF THOSE NAMED WHO,

SERVING ON THE

RMS LUSITANIA,

DIED WHEN THE SHIP WAS

SUNK BY ENEMY ACTION

ON 7 MAY 1915

AND ARE BURIED NEARBY

The name of Able Seaman J.P. Huston is incised on the left hand panel.

The Commission has also stated that should it ever be necessary to renew the panel bearing his name on the Tower Hill Memorial, his name would be omitted from its replacement.

There was no property on his body to be returned to his family.

Links of interest


Joseph Patrick Huston (Robb) at the Merseyside Maritime Museum

Contributors
Peter Kelly, Ireland
Ellie Moffat, UK

References
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths

1891 Census of England and Wales

Commonwealth War Graves Commission

Cunard Records

PRO BT 334

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