THE MAN at the helm of an ocean liner that was the victim of a devastating attack by a German U-boat 100 years ago, had strong links to Altrincham, Sale and Flixton.

Nearly 1,200 people out of about 1,900 passengers and crew died when the Lusitainia was sunk off the south coast of Ireland on May 7, 1915.

There were 128 Americans among the dead – and the infamous incident is credited with shifting public opinion in the USA and influencing America’s eventual declaration of war two years later.

The captain of the Lusitania - which was on a voyage from New York to Liverpool - was Commodore William Thomas Turner, whose family home at the time was in Bowdon.

William - whose nickname was 'Bowler Bill' - survived the sinking of the Cunard passenger ship. He was rescued from the sea after he 'went down with his ship'.

William's connections to what is now Trafford were unearthed by local historian George Cogswell, who has produced a booklet on the subject.

While William was often at sea, his family had a succession of homes in the area - between 1893 and 1917 they moved between Ashton on Mersey, Sale, Flixton and Bowdon.

William's home when the Lusitania went down was a 10-roomed Edwardian property on South Downs Road, Bowdon, where they had moved to in 1906.

George said he warmed to William while researching his life: “After reading about his outstanding career, his brave rescues of people in the water and other ships in distress I have become quite an admirer of Captain Turner.

“I also smiled when I read about his opinion of some of his passengers – apparently he was unimpressed by first class passengers, classifying them as ‘a load of bloody monkeys who are constantly chattering.”

William, who was born in Liverpool in 1856, married his cousin, Alice, in 1883. In 1893 the couple moved to what is now the Trafford area.

Their first home in the area was at East Lea, Westbourne Grove, Ashton on Mersey, where the second of their two sons, Norman, was born on November 1, 1893, and baptised at St Martin’s Parish Church, Ashton on Mersey. Their first son, Percy, had been born in 1885.

From there the family went the short distance to Springfield Road, Sale. Several years later that was followed by a move to a property called ‘Dovenby’ on Church Road, Flixton for a couple of years.

It was then that they went to a house, also called ‘Dovenby’, on South Downs Road, Bowdon, which was his home address at the time of the sinking. They left there in about 1917 when the marriage split up.

Willam moved to Aintree, then to Devon, before returning to Liverpool where he died of cancer in 1933, aged 76.

During his stellar career, he met King George V and Queen Mary in 1913 when they toured the Cunard ship the Mauritania.

He also won recognition for bravery. In 1883 he jumped into the freezing water at Alexandra Dock in Liverpool to rescue a drowning boy, receiving the Liverpool Shipwreck and Humane Society’s silver medal for his actions.

In 1897, he was chief petty officer on a Cunard steamer and led a rescue of the crew of a sinking ship, off Newfoundland. This also gained him an award from the humane society.

After the sinking of the Lusitania, history repeated itself when the ship he went on to command, the Ivernia, was torpedoed and sunk on New Year’s Day, 1917.

He was awarded the OBE in 1918 and retired in 1919.

He was eventually exonerated for the sinking of the Lusitania by an Admiralty Inquiry, led by Winston Churchill. But George said William’s view that the inquiry had tried to blame him had an effect on him.

George said: ”He died a bitter man, unable to bear the public’s scorn over the loss of his ship.

”He never forgave the Admiralty and Winston Churchill for their thoroughly discreditable attempts to exonerate themselves at his expense.”

*The death toll on the Lusitania included a couple from Broadheath.

They were Arthur Londgin, aged 40, and his wife Matilda, aged 38.

From 1906 to 1913 they lived at a succession of homes in Broadheath – on Princess Street, Woodfield Road, and Manchester Road. Arthur was a fitter at the Linotype factory.

They moved to Canada in 1913 and were returning to Britain when they died.