Not on Board

This is an interesting section, as the initial lists of the lost and saved had several errors that needed to be ironed out.  This is not a definitive list of who was or was not on board. You can contribute to making this list better.

Saloon (First Class)


ADAMS, Mrs. Jane
Passenger: first class. On the Sunday, May 9, list of survivors but was not on Saturday’s passenger list.

BERTH, Mr. and Mrs.
Page 2 of Monday’s New York Times has Mr. George Kessler say that he saw “Mrs. Berth” get into a lifeboat after “Mr. Berth” persuaded her to. The couple he cited was actually Mr. and Mrs. Bruno.

BOWEN, Edward B.
A weathly shoe dealer from Boston, Massachusetts canceled his booking the morning the Lusitania was to sail.  “A feeling grew upon me,” he said, “that something was going to happen to the Lusitania. I talked it over with Mrs. Bowen and we decided to cancel our passage – although I had an important business engagement in London.”

COBORNE, Mrs. A. S.
New York.  This name was on the Sunday, May 9, list of survivors. She is actually Mrs. Alexandra Osbourne.

COHEN, M.
New York.

COMPTON, Master Hugh
Passenger. Died, body recovered. Hugh Compton was 17 years old and the son of the president of the Booth Line. This is probably a misspelling of the name of Stephen Hugh CROMPTON, of Philadephia.

DUFF-GORDON, Lady Cosmo (Lucile)
Lady Duff-Gordon
Image credit: Randy Bryan Bigham/Campbell Studios

Renowned fashion designer and infamous survivor of the Titanic disaster (in which it was alleged that her husband bribed those in their lifeboat, #1, not to go back for survivors for fear of swamping), purportedly cancelled passage on the Lusitania‘s last voyage due to illness.

FABER, Mrs.
She was supposedly traveling with the Plamondon couple from Chicago. Mrs. Faber was the wife of the leading man in the “White Feather” company, then at the Princess Theatre, Chicago. She was known on the English stage as Winifred Arthur Jones, daughter of Henry Arthur Jones, playwright.

MANGONE, Mr. Philip
Another well-known designer of women’s clothing who cancelled passage on the Lusitania‘s last voyage, but flew on the last voyage of the Zeppelin Hindenburg 22 years later and survived the catastrophe despite suffering major burns.

MUNRO, Mrs. Charles (Alexandra)
Her presence on board the Lusitania has been much debated, but records show her passing though Ellis Island the following year, which makes a very strong case for her still being alive at this point.

PIPER, Miss Alta
Daughter of renowned spiritualist Leonora Piper, Alta was on her way to attend the wedding of the eldest daughter of Sir Oliver Lodge. Despite her mother’s protestations and not yet having her passport ready, Alta went as far as New York before a wave of unease swept across her the night before sailing.  All night, a voice called to her, saying, “If you get into your berth, you’ll never get out.”

Panicked, the next morning she tried to cancel passage, saying that her passport had not been delivered to her yet, but the Cunard agents reassured her that her passport would be waiting for her in England.  Piper then said that there wasn’t enough time for her to gather her luggage and get on board in time before sailing, but the agents then told her that the Lusitania‘s sailing had been delayed by two hours (undoubtedly due to the Cameronia transfer) and that she had plenty of time.  Just an hour before departure, a desk clerk handed Alta an envelope containing her passport.

Terrified that she might be forced to sail on the doomed liner, Alta spent the next hour in her room unpacking and repacking her clothes, as she couldn’t be forced to sail with her belongings in disarray.  Relief only came when she heard the Lusitania‘s whistles for departure, and then she knew that no one could make her sail on that ship.

TERRY, Miss Ellen
The renowned stage actress had booked passage with Charles Frohman, but had cancelled due to the threat of German submarines.  She sailed on the American Line’s New York, instead, and had tried to persuade Rita Jolivet to do the same without avail.

TWENLOW, Miss Mabel
She was an actress and had booked cabin D-39.  Mabel was ill when she came to the United States the previous week and decided to stay because of her illness.

Second Cabin (Second Class)


CURRAN, Sarah
Philadelphia, PA.  Named in article about people from Philadelphia but not on the Saturday, May 8, passenger list. Supposedly transferred from the Cameronia.

BURKE, Mrs.
New York. Passenger. Reference to her is made in an article in The New York Times, Wednesday, May 12, page 2, that she had been a traveling companion to Miss Ella Woods Lawrence, q.v., both of whom had volunteered for service in the Serbian Red Cross.

GALLAHGER, Miss Margaret.
Another supposed transfer from the Cameronia.  Not on the second cabin passenger list, but a Margaret Galligan is listed; however Miss Galligan per the Cunard Confidentiality Report was not a Cameronia transfer.

GATHERWOOD, Mr. John
A misspelling of Mr. John Catherwood, who was transferred from the Cameronia with his wife.

Crew


Dowie
Dowie was the ship’s black cat and stokers’ mascot, jumped ship the night before it left New York.

O’HAGAN, William
A resident of Liverpool but native of Warrenpoint, County Down, Ireland, O’Hagan had been chief bedroom steward of the Lusitania since she was launched. O’Hagan’s wife had a premonition that the ship would sink and pleaded with him not to go on the last voyage.  William did as his wife requested.  She may have saved his life.

TOWER, Frank
Misspelling of Frank Toner, who supposedly survived the sinking of the Titanic (1912), the Empress of Ireland (1914), and then the Lusitania.

Others


Claims have been put forward by Rosalie Alta Bonsignore and Ida Cantley as being Lusitania survivors, but the passenger and crew lists do not provide evidence that they were on board for the ship’s last crossing.


Contributors:
Randy Bryan Bigham
Jim Kalafus
Michael Poirier

References:
Goss, Michael and George Behe.  Lost at Sea:  Ghost Ships and Other Mysteries.  Prometheus Books, 1994.

Hickey, Des and Gus Smith.  Seven Days to Disaster. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1981.

Hoehling, A. A.  Who Destroyed the Hindenburg? Popular Library, 1962.

Hoehling, A. A. and Mary Hoehling.  The Last Voyage of the Lusitania.  Madison Books, 1956.

13 thoughts on “Not on Board”

  1. My great grandfather Thomas Corrigan traveled on the Lusitania to the United States from London. He was an Irish man that dug coal on the ship. He jumped ship in New York along with another man before the ships final voyage.

  2. My Grandfather Archibald Scott McPherson, was an engineer on the Lusitania on it’s last trip to New York, and jumped ship with many others, having read in local newspapers that the German’s would start torpedoing British shipping crossing the Atlantic.
    He joined other ships throughout his life before retiring, and lived until he was 97!

  3. Hi….my grandfather was thought to be on the Lustania and survived by floating on a mirror……is this myth or fact…anyone know???? His name was William Albert Farrier. I saw the mirror as a young child at his house. He was a carpenter by trade…..was he a lucky person who jumped ship…if so, how is it he had the mirror????

  4. My distant cousin, Lady Duff Gordon, was lucky not to board the Lusitania. Without her, where would modern fashion and the catwalk be? I pay my tributes to those who boarded the Lusitania, but for the money boat scandal, I read her letters and that scandal isn’t true. Those yellow journalists were trying to ruin my cousin’s reputations.

  5. I also forgot to mention that my other distant relative, Alfred Vanderbilt, was on board the Lusitania. His body was never recovered ever since the ship got torpedoed.

  6. I just learned that my English relatives (through ancestry.com) were scheduled to board the Lusitania, but did not…the reasons are still unclear as to WHY but WOW what a clue…I would like to see if anyone remembers a booking of Harry Stokoe, Marianna Valenzuela Stokoe, Elizabeth Stokoe, Mary Jane Stokoe, or names along those lines…them missing the ship is why I am here to write you now…contact me at: armstrong.char30@yahoo.com or FB Char Armstrong with any info that might help my investigation!!! Thank you so very much!!!

  7. My ancestors were also due to sail but luckly did not. My grandmother, Katie Manley, was travelling with 3 of her children when one of them caught measles before boarding, so they didn’t sail. The family in England assumed they were all drowned as they weren’t on the list of those saved, and there was quite a delay before they discovered they were safe and coming home on a later ship.

  8. I would be interested to know the truth of a family story that John Molloy was a crew member on the Lusitania but did not make the final trip out from Liverpool to New York, and was therefore (thankfully!) not on the fateful voyage back.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

RSS194
Follow by Email4
Facebook3k
Twitter432
%d bloggers like this: