Violet Jessop facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Violet Constance Jessop
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Jessop in her Voluntary Aid Detachment uniform while assigned to HMHS Britannic.
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| Born | 2 October 1887 Bahía Blanca, Argentina
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| Died | 5 May 1971 (aged 83) Great Ashfield, Suffolk, England
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| Occupation | Maritime stewardess, nurse |
| Spouse(s) |
John J. Lewis
(m. 1923; div. 1924) |
Violet Constance Jessop (born October 2, 1887 – died May 5, 1971) was an Irish-Argentine woman who worked as a stewardess and nurse on large ocean liners in the early 1900s. She is famous for surviving two major shipwrecks: the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912 and her sister ship, the HMHS Britannic, in 1916. She was also on board the third sister ship, the RMS Olympic, when it crashed in 1911.
Contents
Early Life and First Job
Violet Constance Jessop was born on October 2, 1887, near Bahía Blanca, Argentina. She was the oldest of nine children born to William and Katherine Jessop, who were from Ireland. Violet spent much of her childhood helping to care for her younger brothers and sisters.
When she was a child, Violet became very sick with a serious illness, probably tuberculosis. Doctors thought she wouldn't survive, but she did! When Violet was 16, her father passed away after a surgery. Her family then moved to England. There, Violet went to a special school and looked after her youngest sister while her mother worked as a stewardess on ships.
Later, when her mother became ill, Violet left school. She decided to follow in her mother's footsteps and become a stewardess herself. She even had to dress in plain clothes to make herself less noticeable, as some companies preferred stewardesses who wouldn't distract passengers. At age 21, her first job was as a stewardess for the Royal Mail Line on a ship called the Orinoco in 1908.
Working on the RMS Olympic
In 1911, Violet Jessop started working for the White Star Line on their ship, the RMS Olympic. The Olympic was a very fancy and huge ship, the biggest passenger ship in the world at that time.
On September 20, 1911, Violet was on board when the Olympic left Southampton and crashed into a British warship called the HMS Hawke. Luckily, no one died in this accident. Even though the Olympic was damaged, it was able to return to port without sinking. Violet didn't talk much about this crash in her personal stories. She kept working on the Olympic until April 1912, when she was moved to its sister ship, the Titanic.
Surviving the RMS Titanic
Violet Jessop started working as a stewardess on the RMS Titanic on April 10, 1912. She was 24 years old. Just four days later, on April 14, the Titanic hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic. The ship sank about two hours and forty minutes after the crash.
In her memories, Violet said she was told to go up on deck. Her job was to show non-English speaking passengers how to act calmly and follow instructions. She watched as the crew loaded people into the lifeboats. Later, she was told to get into lifeboat 16. As her lifeboat was being lowered into the water, one of the Titanic officers handed her a baby to look after.
The next morning, Violet and the other survivors were rescued by another ship, the RMS Carpathia. They were taken to New York City, arriving on April 18. Violet remembered that while on the Carpathia, a woman, who was probably the baby's mother, quickly took the baby from her and ran off crying, without saying anything. After arriving in New York, Violet later returned to Southampton, England.
The HMHS Britannic Sinking
During the First World War, Violet Jessop worked as a stewardess for the British Red Cross. On the morning of November 21, 1916, she was on board the HMHS Britannic. This ship was the younger sister ship of the Olympic and Titanic. It had been turned into a hospital ship to help wounded soldiers.
The Britannic sank in the Aegean Sea after hitting a German naval mine. The ship went down very quickly, in just 55 minutes. Out of 1,066 people on board, 30 sadly died.
As the Britannic was sinking, Violet and other passengers were almost killed by the ship's giant propellers. These propellers were still turning and were shredding lifeboats that got too close. Violet had to jump out of her lifeboat to avoid them. She got a serious head injury, but she survived!
In her memories, she described the amazing and scary scene as the Britannic disappeared: "The white pride of the ocean's medical world ... dipped her head a little, then a little lower and still lower. All the deck machinery fell into the sea like a child's toys. Then she took a fearful plunge, her stern rearing hundreds of feet into the air until with a final roar, she disappeared into the depths." Two other men who had also survived the Titanic, Arthur John Priest and Archie Jewell, were also on board the Britannic and survived this sinking too.
Later Life and Retirement
After the war, Violet Jessop returned to work for the White Star Line in 1920. She later worked for other shipping companies, including the Red Star Line and then the Royal Mail Line again. While working for Red Star, Violet went on two trips around the world on their biggest ship, the Belgenland.
When Violet was 36, she married John James Lewis, who was also a steward for the White Star Line. He had worked on the Olympic and the RMS Majestic. However, they divorced about a year later. In 1950, Violet retired from her long career at sea and moved to Great Ashfield, Suffolk, England.
Years after she retired, Violet Jessop said she received a phone call one stormy night. A woman on the phone asked Violet if she had saved a baby the night the Titanic sank. Violet said yes. The voice then said, "I was that baby," laughed, and hung up. Her friend and writer, John Maxtone-Graham, thought it was probably some children in the village playing a trick on her. But Violet insisted, "No, John, I had never told that story to anyone before I told you now."
Violet Jessop passed away from congestive heart failure in 1971 when she was 83 years old.
See also
- Wenman Wykeham-Musgrave, a British sailor who survived three ship sinkings in one day in 1914.
