Echoes of Loss in Swansea: A Tale of Ships, Houses, and Legacy

 The Sinking of the S.S. Sussex

 S.S. Sussex

On 24^th March 1916, the cross-Channel passenger liner S.S. Sussex, sailing between Folkestone and Dieppe, was torpedoed by the German submarine SM UB-29. The explosion tore away the entire bow forward of the bridge, leaving the ship gravely damaged. Lifeboats were launched, but two capsized, and many passengers who had already been rescued drowned. Of the 53 crew and 325 passengers, between 50 and 100 lives were lost. Remarkably, the Sussex did not sink and was eventually towed stern-first into Boulogne harbour.

Built in 1896 for the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway, the Sussex was later transferred to the Compagnie des Chemins de Fer de l'État Français, sailing thereafter under the French flag. After the war she was repaired and sold to Greece in 1919, renamed Aghia Sophia, but following a fire two years later, she was scrapped.

Among those killed in the 1916 attack were the Spanish composer Enrique Granados and his wife Amparo, the Persian prince Bahram Mirza Sardar Mass’oud, and the Irish tennis player Manliffe Goodbody. Vera Collum, a radiographer returning to her hospital in France, was badly injured. Though none of the 75 American civilians on board were killed, several were wounded. Among them was Wilder Penfield, then a medical student at Oxford and later a pioneering neurosurgeon. His left leg was shattered in the blast, and he required many months of treatment and rehabilitation.

The sinking provoked outrage in the United States and triggered a heated diplomatic exchange between Washington and Berlin.

The Life of Thomas William James

One of those who perished on the Sussex was Thomas William James, a solicitor of Swansea.

1871 Census

Thomas was born in 1859 in Newcastle. He first appears in the 1871 census, when the James family were living in the Pancras West area of Marylebone. His father, Thomas M. James (35), was an auctioneer, and his mother, Constantin E. (41), had previously been married to William B. Brown, who died in 1863. She married Thomas M. two years later at St. Mary, Islington. At that time young Thomas, aged 12, was a schoolboy living with his brother Charles M. (4) and half-brother William G. Brown (11). The household also included a servant, Caroline Dovey (17).

1881 Census

By the 1881 census, Thomas’s father had been widowed, and father and son were living together in Swansea at Kensington Terrace (214 St Helen Avenue). Thomas M., now 45, remained an auctioneer, while Thomas, then 22, worked as a surveyor’s clerk. A servant, Mary Evans (17), also lived with them.

Commonwealth Law Examinations

In 1885, Thomas passed his Commonwealth Law Examinations. 

1891 Census

By the 1891 census, he had become a solicitor and was living at Gower House, Oystermouth, aged 31, alongside his friend and fellow solicitor Bertram I. Richardson and two servants, Jane Richardson and Elizabeth Hopkins.

Thomas William James and Constance Emma Jane Beaumont 
marriage certificate
All Saints Church, St Marylebone

In 1897, Thomas married Constance Emma Jane Beaumont at All Saints Church, St Marylebone. Constance had previously been married to John Buckley.  The marriage having been conducted in Victoria, Australia.  John died 1895. 

1901 Census

Yet at the time of the 1901 census, he was living alone at Craig-y-Môr, Oystermouth, supported by three servants: Gwenllian Williams, Ellen J. Knight, and Mabel G. Evans.

1911 Census

By 1911, Thomas and Constance had moved into Rheanfa, Uplands, a substantial late-Victorian villa in Swansea’s Ffynone district, an area built up around St James’s Church (1863–67) with surrounding gardens laid out between 1878 and 1913. At Rheanfa, Thomas, then 52, continued his legal career, while Constance, aged 51, managed the household. Also living with them was her brother Henry Beaumont, a 46-year-old barrister, together with three servants—Dora James, Ellen Kehol, and Catherine Roberts—and a sick nurse, Denah Jenkins.

Thomas William James
Memorial stone
St. James' Church, Uplands

A memorial stone to Thomas William James can still be seen today in St James’ Church, Uplands, commemorating his life and death aboard the Sussex.

The Later History of Rheanfa

After the James family’s time, Rheanfa underwent significant transformations. In the 1920s it was converted into Rheanfa House Maternity Hospital, providing essential maternity care to local families (a midwife’s casebook survives in the archives). By the late 1940s the house had been repurposed again, this time as Rheanfa Remand Home, an approved local authority home for juveniles run by Swansea County Borough Council. It operated until 1 April 1973, when remand homes were phased out nationally under government reform. In short, Rheanfa moved from a prestigious private villa to a maternity hospital, and finally to a remand home before its institutional life came to an end.

Craig-y-Môr and Morfydd Llwyn Owen

Morfydd Llwyn Owen 

Another house with a connection to Thomas James was Craig-y-Môr, Oystermouth, where he lived around 1901. The property later became associated with another poignant story in Swansea’s history.

In August 1918, Craig-y-Môr was the setting for the final days of Morfydd Llwyn Owen (1891–1918), the gifted Welsh composer, pianist, and mezzo-soprano. She and her husband, the psychoanalyst Ernest Jones, were staying there while visiting Gower, the house then belonging to Ernest’s widowed father.

Morfydd suddenly fell ill with acute appendicitis. Instead of being taken to Swansea Infirmary, an operation was carried out at Craig-y-Môr by local surgeon William Frederick Brook, with Ernest himself administering chloroform as anaesthetic. Morfydd slipped into a coma and died on 7^th September 1918, aged just 26. She was buried soon after at Oystermouth Cemetery, before a death certificate had even been issued. Her gravestone bears a line from Goethe: “Hier ist’s getan” — “Here the indescribable is done.”

Morfydd had been a musical prodigy from Treforest, Glamorgan, playing piano by four and composing by six. She studied at Cardiff University and the Royal Academy of Music, London, where she won numerous prizes. Her artistic circle included D. H. Lawrence and Ezra Pound, and despite stepping back from performance after her 1917 marriage, she composed prolifically. By her death, she had written around 250 works, including songs, piano and orchestral pieces, and choral music. Her loss was described as an “incalculable blow” to Welsh culture. In 2018, on the centenary of her death, a blue plaque was unveiled at Craig-y-Môr in her memory.

Craig-y-Môr itself was one of the grand Victorian/Edwardian houses of Oystermouth, standing at the top of Plunch Lane. Its name, meaning “rock by the sea,” reflected its commanding view over Swansea Bay. Locals regarded it as “posh” and socially exclusive, with its own gardener and maid, and it long symbolised the affluence of Mumbles society.

Legacy

The stories of the S.S. Sussex, Thomas William James, Rheanfa, and Morfydd Llwyn Owen are deeply entwined with Swansea’s wider history. The Sussex sinking shaped international diplomacy, forcing Germany into the short-lived “Sussex Pledge” and influencing America’s path toward war. The life and death of Thomas William James reflect the personal cost of global conflict on Swansea’s professional classes; his memory preserved in Uplands. Rheanfa, his home, illustrates the way buildings can evolve with society’s needs, transforming from a family villa to a maternity hospital and later to a remand home, before closing its doors. And Morfydd Llwyn Owen’s brilliance, extinguished so young at Craig-y-Môr, continues to resonate through her music, her reputation as one of Wales’s greatest lost talents, and the plaque that honours her. Together, these lives, houses, and events form a tapestry of personal tragedy, cultural loss, and enduring legacy within Swansea’s history.