Emily Davis was maid to Marguerite, Lady Allan along with Annie Walker. They were traveling aboard Lusitania with Lady Allan’s daughters Gwen and Anna. Emily was at lunch when the torpedo struck the ship. She and Annie met up with the Allans on the port side boat deck and brought two lifebelts. The ship sank from underneath them. Emily, Annie, and Lady Allan were saved. Gwen and Anna were lost.
Emily and Annie traveled in saloon (first class) with Lady Allan and her daughters on ticket 12933. The maids had their own cabin, B-79, and dined in the magnificent saloon class dining room with George Slingsby (valet to Frederick Orr-Lewis), and William Stainton (valet to Charles Frohman). Their table was on C deck of the first class dining room on the starboard side facing the open deck through the window.
On the day of the disaster, Emily and Annie were already sitting down to lunch when Slingsby and Stainton, who were running late, came to join them. They listened to the band play “Tipperary” when Slingsby looked out the window and saw something – the wake of a torpedo.
Slingsby called everyone’s attention to it, including Inspector William Pierpont who also saw the wake. The torpedo impacted, and Slingsby, Emily, and Annie ran to the port side boat deck where they found Lady Allan, her daughters, Frederick Orr-Lewis, William Robert Grattan Holt, Dorothy Braithwaite and Frances Stephens. The maids brought two lifejackets with them.
Slingsby selflessly gave his lifebelt to Lady Allan even though he couldn’t swim. Frances Stephens was holding onto her grandson John, and Dorothy Braithwaite was last seen around lifeboat #14 and somehow separated from them. They did not know what to do as the port side lifeboats were not lowered successfully, so they waited on the port side of the boat deck, until the ship suddenly plunged and sank from beneath them.
Emily Davis and Annie Walker were saved with Lady Allan and pulled aboard the “Greek” Katrina, actually the SS Westborough in disguise.
Contributors:
Michael Poirier, USA
Hildo Thiel, The Netherlands
References:
Hickey, Des and Gus Smith. Seven Days to Disaster. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1981.
Hoehling, A. A. and Mary Hoehling. The Last Voyage of the Lusitania. Madison Books, 1956.
Preston, Diana. Lusitania: An Epic Tragedy. Berkley Books, 2002.
Emily was Lady Allan’s principal maid. She was working her passage with Lady A as well – she was to be married to her fiance in Ireland. She had been a Bernado girl who had come to Canada on an Allan ship, the Sicilian. The 1911 census shows her working as a maid in Robert Holt’s father’s house. Lady Allan had obviously liked her and hired her. There is an insurance record after the war showing her as Mrs Emma Wright (Davis) – she was awarded $500 for the trauma and $1,000 for her lost effects.