Chrissie Aitken’s Story

Chrissie Aitken was baptized Crissy Nicol Marshall Lizzie Stark Aitken. She was born at Davidson’s Mains, Cramond, Edinburgh on September 13th 1898. Her parents were James Aitken (1855-1915) and Jessie Jarvie (1856-1908). She was the fifth of their five children.

Chrissie Aitken’s father was James Aitken (1855-1915), Alexander Guthrie Aitken and Elizabeth Stark’s fifth child. Her father was born at Horsburgh Castle Toll, near Innerleithen in 1855. After leaving Innerleithen school in 1871 he worked in the Innerleithen tweed mills. He married Jessie Jarvie in 1879 and by 1881 he had been promoted to be a pattern weaver. James and Jessie had five children, Alexander b 1880, James Jarvie, b 1883, William b 1887, John b 1890 and Chrissie, born 1899. By 1891 he had moved to Edinburgh and soon found work as a commercial traveller. His entry in the 1901 census describes him as living in Cramond, near Edinburgh and working as a commercial traveller in woollens. Sadly, James’s wife, Jessie Jarvie, died in 1908 and in 1912 he decided to leave Scotland and taking his 13 year old daughter with him set out for Canada to join one of his son James Jarvie and his wife and family in Merritt, British Columbia. They arrived in 1912.

Tragically, two years later, in 1914, his son’s wife Grace Mackay Taylor died. James and his son James Jarvie then decided to return to Scotland bringing with them their remaining family. The party of four sailed from New York on May 1st 1915 in the Lusitania. Three of them perished when the Lusitania was torpedoed off the west coast of Ireland on May 15th 1915, James and his son, James Jarvie Aitken (1883-1915), and infant grandson, (also called James Aitken) (1912-1915). But Chrissie Aitken survived the ordeal and lived to tell the tale.

Chrissie Aitken’s main claim to fame is her story of her survival after the sinking of the R.M.S. Lusitania by a German submarine eight miles off the Old Head of Kinsale, Ireland. She lived in Innerleithen for several years and died in 1992.

The following extract is from “The Sinking of the Lusitania,1915,” Eyewitness to History

The sinking of the Lusitania
The Lusitania made her maiden voyage from Liverpool to New York in September 1907. Construction had begun in 1903 with the goal of building the fastest liner afloat. Her engines produced 68,000-horse power and pushed the giant through the water at an average speed over 25 knots. Dubbed the “Greyhound of the Seas” she soon captured the Blue Ribbon for the fastest Atlantic crossing.

On May 1, 1915, the ship departed New York City bound for Liverpool. Unknown to her passengers, but probably no secret to the Germans, almost all her hidden cargo consisted of munitions and contraband destined for the British war effort. As the fastest ship afloat, the luxurious liner felt secure in the belief she could easily outdistance any submarine. Nonetheless, the menace of submarine attack reduced her passenger list to only half her capacity.

On May 7, the ship neared the coast of Ireland. At 2:10 in the afternoon a torpedo fired by the German submarine U 20 slammed into her side. A mysterious second explosion ripped the liner apart. Chaos reigned. The ship listed so badly and quickly that lifeboats crashed into passengers crowded on deck, or dumped their loads into the water. Most passengers never had a chance. Within 18 minutes the giant ship slipped beneath the sea. One thousand one hundred and nineteen of the 1,924 aboard died

The following newspaper article provides an account by Chrissie Aitken, one of the survivors. Her story brings the tragedy closer to home:

LUSITANIA SURVIVOR – PEEBLESSHIRE FAMILY ON BOARD
Surviving daughter’s story

Miss Chrissie Aitken, who along with her father, brother, and the latter’s two-year old son, was aboard the Lusitania, arrived yesterday at Davidson’s Mains, where she was staying with Mr. W.M. Marshall, her uncle. She fears for her brother and his little boy, having yet heard nothing of them: but, unfortunately, no uncertainty surrounds the fate of her father, as before leaving Queenstown she was called to the melancholy duty of identifying his dead body. Despite the terrible experiences through which she had passed and the additional shock of her father’s death, Miss Aitken – who is only seventeen years of age – was able to tell her story with wonderful calmness and courage.

“Just before the ship was struck”, she said “we were all sitting at lunch, and as a girl friend was waiting for me I left the table before the others, and I never saw them again. I was in my cabin when the torpedo struck, and it seemed to hit a part of the boat near me. Instinctively I seemed to know we had been torpedoed, for it had been in all our minds right across the whole way, though it was treated mostly as a joke. We thought we got safely so far, all possible danger was past, but we made a terrible mistake. The smoke was already coming into my cabin, and I rushed above. A great many people were running about, but others took it very quietly though they were lowering the boats. It was everybody for themselves and I rushed down to the saloon to get a lifebelt but the steward would not give me one saying I was to go downstairs for one. I was starting to go down as I had seen smoke in my cabin and I rushed up on deck again.”

After describing the scene on deck when hurried preparations were being made to get women and children into life boats, Miss Aitken said,

“The women were very calm and the crew were just splendid. One of the crew noticed that I had not a belt and he took off his own and fastened it round me. The ship was dipping over to one side terribly, and after we got into the boat, and it was lowered, a remark made by one of the stewards made me think our boat was to be swamped like the one before it, and I jumped overboard. I don’t remember anything then for a long time, but the lifeboat seems to have got away all right, for afterwards I saw some ladies who were in it, and they hadn’t even got wet. But a lot had happened before I regained consciousness. When next I remember anything I was floating amongst the wreckage, and the ship had gone. Everything seemed calm then, but I was a bit dazed and don’t remember clearly. A little bit away there was an upturned boat and three men on it. I struggled to it and the men pulled me up. We stayed there for a time – I don’t know how long, and then a collapsible boat took us off, and later a minesweeper took us into Queenstown.”

Although speaking with quiet restraint, Miss Aitken was naturally disinclined to give more details of her terrible experiences but it was easy to see that underneath her calmness there was a fearful memory.

From what Miss Aitken says there is a conviction amongst the passengers that the torpedoes gave off some powerful gas on explosion, and the gases were for the purpose of suffocating anyone with whom they came into contact. She still has a feeling of suffocation, and states that many other passengers al made a similar complaint.

Until about three years ago Miss Aitken lived with her father at Walkerburn, near Innerleithen where Mr Aitken was connected with the Tweed trade. Her brother, Jarvie Aitken, had settled in Merritt, British Columbia, and it was to join him that father and daughter went out three years ago. On the death of her brother’s wife they decided to return to Scotland and had transferred from the Cameronia to the ill fated Lusitania. The friend of whom Miss Aitken spoke was from Abbeyhill , Edinburgh. She never saw her again after the ship was struck.

[from a newspaper cutting – source unidentified but possibly from The Scotsman.]

Chrissie Aitken married George Scott Barnett in St Andrew’s Edinburgh in 1932. She died in Newington, Edinburgh on October 20th 1992.

Revised by Oliver Russell

29th November 2010

orussell at btinternet dot com