Violet Jessop – Survived 3 sinking ships

During the first part of the 20th century, sailing was far from safe and ships didn’t have the safety standards and equipment they do now, leading to hundreds of ships being lost unnecessarily. The chances of surviving a sinking ship would depend on how many lifeboats you had or how cold the water was, but for most, it was simply bad luck to be in a position where you were forced to find out. Violet Jessop is the female version of the “unsinkable stoker” and they even survived sinking on one of the same ships, though they didn’t know each other.

(Violet Jessop, 1887 – 1971)

Violet was born in 1887 and decided to follow in her mother’s footsteps as a ship-based stewardess. She got her first placement on a ship belonging to the Royal Mail and stayed there until she got a job with the White Star company onboard a ship called the RMS Olympic. On 20 September 1911, the Olympic left port in Southampton and ran into a warship named the HMS Hawke, causing damage to both ships. There were no fatalities and both ships could safely make it back to port for a short period of repairs.

The ship she was working on had two sister ships that were built on a similar design, and Violet transferred to one in April 1912, a ship called the RMS Titanic. This is the most famous ship sinking in history and at the age of 24, Violet had no idea that her dream job would only last for four days. After a very short training period and being shown around the ship, it set sail and headed through Arctic waters on its way to America. On 14 April 1912, the ship hit an iceberg and began to sink, but as one of the crew, Violet had to follow orders and was told to stand on deck as an example of what to do for the non-English speaking passengers.

After directing people towards the lifeboats and watching the last few being lowered into the icy waters, she was told to board lifeboat number 16 and was given a baby to look after. Violet and most of the people close by were picked up the following morning and taken to New York where a hysterical woman grabbed the baby and ran off crying without saying anything.

She stayed in New York for a while before returning to Southampton to look for work on another ship. During World War I, she worked for the British Red Cross aboard the HMHS Britannic, the youngest of the three sister ships. The ship had been converted into a hospital ship and was in little danger of being directly attacked, but while passing through the Aegean Sea, a German sea mine exploded on the side of the hull and tore it open.

(The SS Belgenland, a ship Violet worked on after the three accidents that safely completed two full world tours)

The ship took 55 minutes to sink and took 30 of the 1,066 people on board with it. One especially scary scene that Violet spoke about later was the ship’s propellor shredding lifeboats as it sank. The ship went down nose first and pulled all the nearby lifeboats towards it with the suction of the water, but it wasn’t until the propellor wet under and started spinning horizontally in the water that the terror set in. Lifeboats were being pulled towards it and getting cut to shreds, and many people had to jump into the water and swim away, including Violet who suffered a head injury in the process.

Even after three serious accidents on three ships, Violet soon returned to work again as a stewardess and continued in the trade until her retirement in 1950.