Is your ancestor listed here?

[mybabylu9]

On 9 January 1915 a group of some 23 men arrived in New York aboard the Megantic.  They had all travelled from Liverpool and all came from the Plumstead/Woolwich area of SE London' their age on the day of arrival is given in brackets.  Each man had his passage paid for by the British Govt and their destination was South Bethlehem, Pensylvania, USA.  My husband's grandfather, George Keeffe, was one of these men, however we have no evidence of why they went.  The family story was that he was involved in "building railways" but as most of the men were "examiners" from the Royal Arsenal, I feel the trip was more about examining guns etc for WW1.  Is your Ancestor here and if so do you have the true story of why the men were shipped off to the USA?  Sadly George died while in the USA at the young age of 43 and his wife and son returned to the UK.  This list has been taken from the Ellis Island website:
Thomas Wise (35), James P Whelan (32), Percy A Robinson (29), William Kennedy (54), Albert E Allan (45), John Joseph Moylan (25), Arthur Hopewell (27), Charles Best (41), William J Burley (27), Harry P Creech (29), Henry J Beavan (23), John Morgan (38), John A Dudley (34), J W Skeliter Jno (36), Leonard W Blandford (22), Richard O'Connell (46), George M Gardner (41), Harry Russell (34), Clement Coulter (25), Francis Peers (57), Alexander H Smith (25), George G B Hannan (32).
Hope someone knows someone who might know something!

[Erato]

They did not all return to England together as a group.  I’ve looked for and found a few of them, for example: 

Henry James Beavan, arrived in Liverpool, 25 December 1918, on the SS Empress of Britain, occupation  -   British War Mission.  In sum, it was a strange bunch of passengers -  many British military and defense employees, a large contingent of American Knights of Columbus workers, and a very large group of American YMCA  workers.

>>>>>>

South Bethlehem, Pennsylvania has a historical society with a contact email address.  Maybe they could give you some idea what these men were examining in 1915.  This is the website:

http://www.southbethhistsoc.org/

[mybabylu9]

Thanks for the web-link.  I will certainly try that.

I've discovered that not all the wives/children went out and those that did seemed to travel at different times.  My George's wife & son travelled out some 11 months later with James Whelan's wife and family and, as you say, they certainly didn't all come back together.  I think I've found Arthur Hopewell and Clement Coulter's return journeys as well.  Problem is finding out what they did on their return!  I believe Clement died in 1994 in Torbay but that's far as I've got so far.  Need to work down through the whole list.  There is one other member of the Rootschat forum descended from Albert Allan who I've recently got in touch with  but sadly she knows about as much as I do but at least this contact prompted my posting and renewed interest in the journey.  Had to jump through quite a few hoops to get a copy of George's death certificate from the New York State archives - been doing this for quite a number of years and usually something turns up!

Thanks again.