| Gwendolyn Allan Saloon Passenger Lost |
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 Image: New York Herald, Monday10 May 1915. Courtesy Jim Kalafus. |
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| Born | Gwendolyn Evelyn Allan 20 April 1900 Montréal, Québec, Canada |
| Died | 7 May 1915 (age 15) At sea |
| Age on Lusitania | 15 |
| Ticket number | 12933 |
| Cabin number | B 49 (regal suite and bath) |
| Traveling with | – Marguerite, Lady Allan (mother) – Anna Allan (sister) – Emily Davis (maid) – Annie Walker (maid) |
| Body number | 218 |
| Interred | Mount Royal Cemetery, Montréal, Québec, Canada |
| Citizenship | British (Canada) |
| Residence | Montréal, Québec, Canada |
| Other name(s) | Gwen Allan |
Gwendolyn Evelyn Allan (1900 – 1915), 15, was sailing on the Lusitania with her mother, Marguerite, Lady Allan, her sister Anna Marjory Allan, and the Allan maids Emily Davis and Annie Walker. The Allans were in the lounge when the torpedo struck Lusitania. They stayed together on the port side boat deck when the ship sank from beneath them. Marguerite and the maids survived, but Gwendolyn and Anna were lost. Gwen’s body was recovered, #218.
Life and Lusitania
Gwendolyn Allan was born to Sir Montagu Allan and Marguerite, Lady Allan of Montréal, Québec, Canada, on 20 April 1900. She was the youngest of four children. Hoehling and Hoehling (1956) states that she was the twin sister of Anna Allan, but in actuality Anna was almost two years older than Gwen.
Aboard the Lusitania‘s last voyage, the Allans traveled on the same ticket, 12933. Lady Allan and her daughters stayed in regal suite B-47, 49. The daughters stayed in B-49. B-47 was Lady Allan’s own room. Annie Walker and Emily Davis stayed in a separate cabin, B-79.
For their meals, Lady Allan and her daughters shared a table in the dining room with Frederick Orr-Lewis, Frances Stephens, Dorothy Braithwaite, and William Robert Grattan Holt. Frederick Orr-Lewis’ valet, George Slingsby, often entertained the Allan girls.
According to Hickey and Smith (1981) during the voyage, the Allan sisters and one of the maids accosted Able Seaman Leslie Morton while Morton was painting the lifeboats gray with “crab fat.” Gwen and Anna asked Leslie what he was doing and then asked if they could help.
“I hardly think this is a job for girls.” Leslie answered.
Even so, Anna took the rag Morton was using and slopped paint all over the lifeboat he was painting and her white dress. Morton was “aghast” at what Anna had just done (Hickey and Smith, 122). He then heard Boatswain John Davies approach. Anna dropped the swab and ran off with Gwen.
Morton, not wanting to be yelled at by either the boatswain or the girls’ nursemaid, slid over the side and down one deck.*
At the time of the torpedo’s impact, the Allan family was in the lounge with Frederick Orr-Lewis, Dorothy Braithwaite, Frances Stephens, and Robert Holt. They ran out on deck. Orr-Lewis made sure that they stayed together. There, Frederick Orr-Lewis’ valet, George Slingsby, and Lady Allan’s maids joined them. One of the maids came with two lifebelts. Another man gave his lifebelt to one of Marguerite’s daughters. Dorothy separated from them in the crowd and was last seen near lifeboat #14.
Marguerite jumped into the water with her daughters after “saying that they would die together” (Hoehling and Hoehling, 210). Both of her daughters died, but her maids survived. Gwen’s body, #218, was recovered by May 16 and sent back to Canada, where she was buried in Montréal’s Mount Royal Cemetery. Anna’s body was never found, but a memorial was erected for her in Mount Royal as well.
* It is entirely possible that the girls may have actually been Alberta and Catherine Crompton, younger and possibly more prone to pranks, accompanied by their “furious nanny” Dorothy Allen.
Contributors:
Randy Bryan Bigham
Michael Poirier, USA
Judith Tavares
Hildo Thiel, The Netherlands
John Walmsley, Canada
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.
I am with Mike on this – I think that it was very unlikely that the Allan girls are involved in the boat painting. Aged 16 and 15, they were on the verge of adulthood. Their older sister Martha had begun an affair with an older man aged 17 and had gone to France on her own to be with him. She was their role model. Their brother Hugh was at Eton in Pop and they would have met his friends who were now leaving school or in the army. Hugh was to join up later that year. They would have seen themselves as women I think
Here is more on their older sister Martha – who was on there Adriatic a week ahead of the Lusitania – on her way to serve at first as an ambulance driver – she bought her own vehicle! http://smartpei.typepad.com/robert_patersons_weblog/2014/09/world-war-1-martha-allan-nursing-and-womens-revolution.html