This month marked the 106th anniversary of the sinking of RMS Lusitania, which was torpedoed by German U-boats on 7 May 1915 off the coast of Ireland.

While the disaster killed 1,195 people, among the list of survivors was Frodsham local George Edwards 'Hutch' Hutchinson, who was born in the town in 1888 to Andrew and Mary Hopkins Hutchinson.

Their family home was called 'Manor House', but it is not clear where exactly it stood.

By 1915, George had been working for five years as first electrician of the Engineering Department on the Lusitania, earning £12-0s-0d per month.

"I would not have been kicked off her," he said: "I loved her so much."

One of the only passenger ships to continue on her regular route during World War One, the Lusitania departed for Liverpool from New York on 1 May, carrying 1,959 people.

One week later, at 14:10 pm on 7 May, the ship was struck by a torpedo 11 miles off the Old Head of Kinsale in Ireland.

According to an interview published in The Warrington Guardian after this catastrophic event, George was in his room at the time, preparing "[his] list in readiness for reaching Liverpool."

Hearing a loud bang, he rushed below deck to find that the electricity had failed, plunging everything into darkness.

A few minutes later, the ship listing alarmingly, George met the chief engineer, shaking his hand as he said: 'Good-by old chap, I think it is everybody for himself now.'

George then slid down the side of the Lusitania, plunging into the 11 °C waters below.

"It was a beautiful sunny day and the water was calm and it was owing to these conditions that so many were saved," George said.

Having given his lifebelt to a lady struggling to keep herself afloat, George then came across a man shouting for help, screaming "I am Vanderbilt," the American millionaire.

"I was treading the water and it was extremely difficult for me to give him help. I did all I could to save him, but I had no lifebelt myself. He went despite my efforts," the first electrician said.

George remained in the water for another four hours, floating between the Lusitania's struggling passengers on a wooden plank and apparently saving the lives of two men and two women.

He was eventually rescued by one of the ship's collapsible boats, which delivered him to the H.M.S. Brock and then to Queenstown (now Cobh), Ireland.

"'When we were landed at Queenstown a large crowd had gathered, and cheered us. I was introduced to the Lord Mayor of Cork, and met Miss Ballantine, of Glasgow, whose life I had been instrumental in saving, and we kept together until we reached Liverpool."

George arrived back on home soil early the following morning, and quite miraculously found himself crossing the Transporter Bridge between Widnes and Runcorn by 3pm on May 9, just two days after those desperate hours in the Celtic Sea.

There, his mother was waiting for him with a pony and trap, and George finally allowed himself to "play the child" and break down in tears.

Following this life-changing experience, George joined the army. He died tragically of pneumonia in the Military Hospital, Catthays Barracks, Cardiff in June 1919 at the age of 31 having become a Lance Corporal of the 4th Cheshire Regiment.

You can read a full contemporary account of the sinking, along with a short testimony from George himself, in this edition of the Daily Sketch

Sources: National Museums Liverpool, [I]The Guardian Newspapers courtesy of the British Newspaper Archive and Frodsham and District History Archive[.I]