On William's draft card it says he has 'a bayonet scar' underneath his heart, and he told his children his 'vaccination scars' were from the time he served in WWI. Yet I can't find him in armed forces records..
What I
did find was this, on Wikipedia, wrt the 'Belgic' on which William sailed for New York in 1919:
By the middle of 1920, IMM was investigating recurrent instances of cargo disappearing from its ships. Disappearances had been happening for about two years, and cargo worth about $5 million appeared to have been stolen. When Belgic docked at Pier 16 on the North River in New York at the beginning of July 1920, White Star Line officials found that cloth worth about $60,000 was missing from her cargo [...] 12 members of Belgic's crew were arrested and taken ashore. Four of her engine room crew were suspected of stealing broadcloth worth about $1,000.
I'm not sure what type of business William was a 'barman' at (can't find the name of the location at 106 Mill St, owned by Cain & Son in 1921) but I
do think it's a possibility he got in with 'the wrong crowd' when he was on the 'Belgic'. Young, itchy feet, fatherless since a year so presumably pretty susceptible for praise, seeing all those American soldiers fresh from the war being ferried back home on the ship.. it all must've had an effect.
My theory (and that's all it is until I find proof) is that the wife & son may not have been the reason he skipped the country. Maybe he was still in touch with former crew mates and he double-crossed the wrong person and caught a knife. After all, if he's the correct William who boarded the 'Homeric' in June 1923, he traveled over
260 miles from his home town of Liverpool to do so. Could be he caught a ship from Liverpool to do so, or maybe he had been on the run for a while already and they caught up with him there. But it's obvious leaving the country was a last resort.
I can't help but be utterly fascinated by his story, and I have so
so many questions. Was William on the wrong side of the law by choice or by accident? Did he leave the country to save himself or protect his wife and young son; or both? Did he marry Adeline in the hopes of obtaining citizenship or for love? Was he (dare I say it) a bigamist, or was the marriage with Elizabeth somehow officially ended before Sep 1925? Did his third wife Alma ever find out about his background and intentionally never told her children, or did she never know?
Was William ever naturalized?!I wonder whether there may be hints of what really happened buried in archives, newspapers, etc either in the UK or the US.
