SURVIVING THE LUSITANIA
Hamiltonian spent 2 1/2 harrowing hours in the cold Atlantic Ocean after ship sank
“There were of course plenty of dead bodies bumping into us all the time but no signs of any boats near …”
Those cathartic words, written 107 years ago by a Hamilton survivor of the infamous sinking of the Lusitania passenger liner, are like a message through time.
They are part of six typewritten pages of vivid recollection by 59year-old Robinson Pirie of his 2 1/2hour ordeal to keep from drowning in the cold Atlantic Ocean.
“I then looked around for something to cling to; got an oar, then a small block of wood, then a plank. This was big enough for me to straddle, so I quietly rested until I had regained strength,” he continued in the letter to his family that was donated to the Dundas Museum and Archives about 15 years ago.
As I read the account of May 7, 1915, it brought back memories of a 2016 visit to the seaport town of Cobh in Ireland that was the centre of rescue and body recovery efforts all those years ago.
The community — known as Queenstown in 1915 and just 18 kilometres from where the ship sank — is still deeply affected by the tragedy. There is a big monument that depicts a winged angel watching over two exhausted, sea-soaked men seemingly caught in a moment between life and death.
A museum is partly dedicated to the Lusitania, as well as the Titanic because Queenstown was the giant luxury liner’s last port of call before striking an iceberg in April 1912.
On the outskirts of the town, the “Old Church Cemetery” commemorates the Lusitania dead with solemn rock and brass monuments for 169 victims buried in three common graves and 20 private graves.
I remember coming upon a tattered paper list in a plastic sheath left from 100th anniversary ceremonies the previous year. It identified the location of several Canadians in a “Common Grave C” including a Mrs. John (Elizabeth) Bull, 62 of Hamilton, “body # 78.”
A total of 19 people from Hamilton died with three others, including Pirie, being among those saved. The ship sank in just 18 minutes with 1,198 people being lost. Most of the more than 764 people rescued were brought to Queenstown for medical assistance.
The Germans had announced that civilian ships in the waters around Great Britain would be targeted as part of First World War hostilities. But, it was assumed passengers and crew members would be given the opportunity to abandon ships before torpedoes were fired. The torpedo from a German U-boat struck the ship without warning, leading to international outrage.
Pirie, who was born and grew up in Dundas before moving to Toronto and then Hamilton, was on a business trip for men’s clothing maker W.E. Sanford Manufacturing Company.
Sanford, as described in a July 2021 Flashbacks column, made a fortune by pioneering ready-towear men’s suits out of a factory located where the Residences of Royal Connaught now stands at King and John streets in Hamilton.
Pirie was Sanford’s chief fabric buyer and was in a first-class lounge when the ship was attacked.
He tried to get to a lifeboat but was still on board when the ship went down.
“I, being a fairly good swimmer, was not afraid, but thought that I would never get up. Have no idea of how far down we went, but upon coming to the surface saw two or three small boats and waving arms,” Pirie wrote shortly after the ordeal in his letter.
He was finally plucked out of the water by rescuers in a lifeboat that took him to a minesweeper that was being used in the rescue operation.
Pirie writes about his time in Queenstown and the effort by authorities to try to identify bodies. He tried to find out whether people he knew on the ship from Hamilton — including James Mason Young and Georgina Young and Julius Strauss — were among the bodies found.
“To satisfy myself about my friends, I went through all the morgues, there were four of them … I could see no face whom I knew but lots of very painful sights.”
Jean Freeman is a grand niece of Pirie and has been a volunteer with the Dundas museum for many years. She received the letter, photos and other Lusitania memorabilia from Pirie’s granddaughter and passed on the material to the museum.
Pirie’s handwritten account was lost over the years, but a family member many decades ago had the document typed out before the original either disintegrated or went missing. It’s not clear why “Wood, Vallance and Co.” letterhead was used for typewriter paper or the relevance of the company to the family. The letter is often on display at the museum but more recently it was put in storage to make way for other exhibits. A copy can be read at thespec.com.
After returning to Hamilton, Pirie lived on East Avenue before moving to 24 Hess St., the building that is the Gown and Gavel tavern today.
Pirie died in 1920 at the age of 65, five years after the sinking. “His family thought he died younger than he would have normally because of the time he spent in that cold water,” said Freeman.
Passengers from Hamilton
19 Dead
3 Survivors
Here are some random notes about passengers from Hamilton gleaned from Spectator files and the massive online website called the Lusitania Resource at rmslusitania:
James and Georgina Young, both 61, were en route to the hospital bedside of their injured son James Vernon, an officer with Canadian troops who was wounded on the Western front. Witnesses say the couple held hands and jumped off the ship because they felt they could not survive.
James was a co-founder of the Hamilton Cotton Co., a major employer in Hamilton through the
early 1900s. The Youngs were great grandparents of Bob Young, who owns the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.
■ Julius Strauss, 39, was a cloth buyer for Coppley Noyes and Randall, in Hamilton and regularly made transatlantic trips between North America and England, often on the Lusitania.
■ The most devastating family loss among Hamiltonians was the Burley family. Reuben, 39, Florence, 38, their daughter, Doris, 9, and infant child, Reginald, all died as well as Florence’s mother, Elizabeth Bull, 62. Reuben worked as a machinist in Hamilton. The family was on holiday with Burley who was returning to England after a period living in Hamilton, according to the Lusitania Resource.
■ Joseph and Alice Bishop were travelling with William Bishop, presumably a brother of Joseph.
■ Others from Hamilton listed on the Lusitania Resource website include Lilian Critchison, age not available, and Bernard Critchison, 13 months, George Sidwell, 48, Frederick Skelton, 30, Minnie Smith, 28, Albert Tucker, 25, Margaret Boyd, age not available,
George Rolfe, 31.
■ The two other survivors from Hamilton were Stanley Critchison, 31, (husband of Lilian Critchison), and Alexandra Osborne, 49.
■ In 2001, it came to light that Lusitania
survivor Arthur Scott, 94, had been living in Hamilton for many decades. He was eight years old — and a resident of the Lancashire, England mill town of Nelson in 1915 — when he found himself on the
ship with his 28-year-old mother Alice Ann Scott. She didn’t make it. Scott’s family, in a 2001 Spectator obituary, said Arthur never spoke of the tragedy.