Henry Ward Cunningham

Cunningham was born at Burgeo, Newfoundland, and was the son of the Reverend John Cunningham.^[7][1] By February 1880 he was a missionary student at St Boniface College, Warminster, in Wiltshire, England.^[8]

In 1880 he rescued another student who fell through ice while skating; the incident was reported in Newfoundland press and was recognized with the Royal Humane Society's silver medal for lifesaving.^[7][8]

Cunningham served as rector of St George's Church in Halifax from 1900 to 1937.^[9]. In later accounts of mid-20th-century Halifax, he was associated with a long period in which the parish attracted a substantial number of Newfoundlanders.^[10]

In April 1912, the cable ship CS Minia was chartered for body recovery operations after the sinking of RMS Titanic, sailing from Halifax under Captain W. E. S. deCarteret with an undertaker, H. W. Snow, and Cunningham aboard.^[11] Cunningham travelled on the voyage to conduct burial services at sea, and held a short service as Minia passed over the site of the sinking.^[12]

During the Halifax Explosion in December 1917, Cunningham was serving at St. George's and took part in relief work in his clerical capacity.^[13] Later, Cunningham submitted a personal narrative to Archibald MacMechan, director of the Halifax Disaster Record Office; the narrative is listed among the preserved records of the disaster held by the provincial archives.^[14]

Cunningham died on 12 February 1943 at Bedford, Nova Scotia, and was buried at St. John's Cemetery in Halifax.^[15].^[1] His legacy is particularly associated with his participation in Halifax's response to two major early twentieth-century disasters.^[11][16]