In conversation with Peter Elson, Journalist and Maritime Expert

Peter Elson is a Merseyside-based journalist, broadcaster, former British Maritime Writer of the Year and holder of a Merseyside Civic Society Special Award.

As a leading Liverpool city guide, he was chosen by the US Embassy to give a personal tour to the American Ambassador to the UK.

He wrote for the Telegraph, Times, Guardian, Observer and Mail before moving to the Liverpool Daily Post & Echo. More recently, he worked as a fundraiser for Liverpool Blue Coat School.

His Daily Post Get On Board campaign succeeded in cruises being allowed to run from Liverpool; other campaigns included saving the Edward Chambre Hardman house and archive in Rodney Street (resulting in purchase by the National Trust); and the return of Cruel Sea novelist Nicholas Monsarrat’s archive to Liverpool Athenaeum from his Malta home.

He believes his fascination with maritime matters derives from being a great nephew times seven of Captain Cook and as a child commuting by ship to and from his South African birthplace.

The sinking of the Lusitania: M**der or misfortune?

The catastrophic sinking of the Liverpool-bound Cunard superliner Lusitania by a German U-boat has been eclipsed by the spectacular tragedy of her White Star Line transatlantic rival Titanic.

Yet Lusitania’s loss three years after Titanic was hugely more significant, changing not only the course of the First World War but also of global warfare. On 7 May 1915 this famous ship, filled with nearly 2000 civilian souls was torpedoed by U-20 resulting in 1200 deaths in chilly waters off the Irish coast.

But why was a passenger liner steaming through a much-publicised warzone, as if offered up as prey for the enemy? Was it complacency? Or ignorance about the rapidly changing rules of engagement?

Worse, was it a plan by the man regularly hailed as the ‘Greatest Briton of All Time’ – Winston Churchill – to lure the US into the war, prompted by the death toll of American passengers?

Peter Elson delves into the murky depths of the Atlantic and that international cover-ups that 111 years later still shroud a disaster which took a mere 20 minutes to change history.

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

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Host or Publisher Liverpool John Moores University - Roscoe Lecture