Lost on the Lusitania

"Sir Hugh Lane: Lost on the Lusitania" poster

1915

Gregory's nephew, Hugh Lane, a leading art dealer and collector, and recently appointed director of the National Gallery of Ireland, was on the RMS Lusitania, returning from a visit to New York, when the ship was torpedoed a few miles off the coast of Ireland by a German U-boat. Nearly 1,200 passengers and crew died, Lane among them. In the days immediately afterwards, his siblings, hoping he was still alive or that his body had been found, issued posters appealing for information. The German embassy in New York had published warnings that any vessels flying the flag of Britain or its allies were liable to attack, but this sinking of a passenger ship caused worldwide outrage and indirectly contributed to the United States' entry into World War I.