Violet Jessop: Survived The Titanic, Britannic And The Olympic

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Violet Jessop.

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Hello! I'm Mr. Ed

Blog Created: 10-5-2022

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Wikipedia // Katie Serena

Violet Constance Jessop (2 October 1887 – 5 May 1971), often referred to as the "Queen of sinking ships" or "Miss Unsinkable," was an Argentine woman of Irish heritage who worked as an ocean liner stewardess, memoirist, and nurse in the early 20th century. Jessop is most well known for having survived the sinking of both the RMS Titanic in 1912 and her sister ship the HMHS Britannic in 1916, as well as having been onboard the eldest of the three sister ships, the RMS Olympic, when it collided with the British warship HMS Hawke in 1911.

Early Life ~

Born on 2 October 1887, near Bahía Blanca, Argentina, Violet Constance Jessop was the oldest daughter of Irish immigrants William and Katherine Jessop. She was the first of nine children, six of whom survived. Jessop spent much of her childhood caring for her younger siblings. She became very ill as a child with what is presumed to have been tuberculosis, which she survived despite doctors' predictions that her illness would be fatal. When Jessop was 16 years old, her father died of complications from surgery and her family moved to England, where she attended a convent school and cared for her youngest sister while her mother was at sea working as a stewardess. When her mother became ill, Jessop left school and, following in her mother's footsteps, applied to be a stewardess. Jessop had to dress down to make herself less attractive to be hired. At age 21, her first stewardess position was with Royal Mail Line aboard Orinoco in 1908.

RMS Olympic ~

Olympic.

In 1911, Jessop began working as a stewardess for the White Star liner RMS Olympic. Olympic was a luxury ship that was the largest civilian liner at that time. Jessop was on board on 20 September 1911, when Olympic left from Southampton and collided with the British warship HMS Hawke. There were no fatalities and, despite damage, the ship was able to make it back to port without sinking. Jessop chose not to discuss this collision in her memoirs. She continued to work on Olympic until April 1912, when she was transferred to sister ship Titanic.

RMS Titanic ~

Titanic.

Jessop boarded RMS Titanic as a stewardess on 10 April 1912, at age 24. Four days later, on 14 April, it struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic and sank about two hours and forty minutes after the collision. Jessop described in her memoirs how she was ordered up on deck to serve as an example of how to behave for the non-English speakers who could not follow the instructions given to them. She watched as the crew loaded the lifeboats. She was later ordered into lifeboat 16, and as the boat was being lowered, one of Titanic's officers gave her a baby to look after. The next morning, Jessop and the rest of the survivors were rescued by the RMS Carpathia and taken to New York City on April 18. According to Jessop, while on board Carpathia, a woman, presumably the baby's mother, grabbed the baby she was holding and ran off crying, without saying a word. After arriving in New York City, she later returned to Southampton.

HMHS Britannic ~

Britannic.

In the First World War, Jessop was a stewardess for the British Red Cross. On the morning of 21 November 1916, she was aboard HMHS Britannic, the younger sister ship of Olympic and Titanic that had been converted into a hospital ship, when it sank in the Aegean Sea after an unexplained explosion. Britannic sank within 55 minutes, killing 32 of the 1,066 people on board. British authorities hypothesized that the ship had either been struck by a torpedo or had hit a mine planted by German forces. Conspiracy theories have even circulated that suggest the British were responsible for sinking their own ship. In a major diving expedition on the wreck in 2016, however, it was determined that the ship had struck a deep sea mine. This was shown in the documentary film of that dive, The Mystery of the Britannic.

While Britannic was sinking, Jessop and other passengers were nearly killed by the ship's propellers that were shredding lifeboats that collided with the propellers. Jessop had to jump out of her lifeboat, resulting in a traumatic head injury which she survived. In her memoirs, she described the scene she witnessed as Britannic went under: "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." Arthur John Priest and Archie Jewell, two other survivors of the Titanic, were also onboard and both survived.

Later Life ~

Jessop returned to work for White Star Line in 1920, before joining Red Star Line and then Royal Mail Line again. During her tenure with Red Star, Jessop went on two cruises around the World on the company's largest ship, Belgenland. In her late thirties, Jessop had a brief marriage, and in 1950 she retired to Great Ashfield, Suffolk. Years after her retirement, Jessop claimed to have received a telephone call, on a stormy night, from a woman who asked Jessop if she had saved a baby on the night that Titanic sank. "Yes," Jessop replied. The voice then said "I was that baby," laughed, and hung up. Her friend and biographer John Maxtone-Graham said it was most likely some children in the village playing a joke on her. She replied, "No, John, I had never told that story to anyone before I told you now." Records indicate that the only baby on lifeboat 16 was Assad Thomas, who was handed to Edwina Troutt, and later reunited with his mother on Carpathia.

Belgenland, on which Jessop went twice around the World.

The Cunard Line's RMS Carpathia, which rescued the survivors of the RMS Titanic's sinking.

Jessop died of congestive heart failure in 1971 at the age of 83.

In popular culture ~

In the 1958 film A Night To Remember, a scene depicts naval architect Thomas Andrews (played by Michael Goodliffe) instructing a stewardess to be seen wearing her life jacket as an example to the other passengers. Several scenes from this film inspired later depictions of the sinking; in James Cameron's later 1997 blockbuster Titanic, a similar encounter takes place involving Andrews and a stewardess named Lucy, who is also told to wear her life jacket in order to convince the passengers to do the same.

In the 1979 television movie S.O.S. Titanic, she was portrayed as an elderly stewardess played by Madge Ryan.

In the 2000 television movie Britannic, the main character is Vera Campbell (played by Amanda Ryan), a woman who is apprehensive about travelling on Britannic because she had survived the sinking of Titanic four years earlier.

In 2006, "Shadow Divers" John Chatterton and Richie Kohler led an expedition to dive HMHS Britannic. The dive team needed to accomplish a number of tasks including reviewing the expansion joints. The team was looking for evidence that would change the thinking on RMS Titanic's sinking. During the expedition, Rosemary E. Lunn played the role of Violet Jessop, re-enacting her jumping into the water, from her lifeboat which was being drawn into Britannic's still turning propellers.

The character of Jessop is featured in the Chris Burgess stage play Iceberg – Right Ahead!, staged for the first time Upstairs at the Gatehouse in Highgate, March 2012, to commemorate the centenary of the sinking of Titanic. Jessop's role was played by Amy-Joyce Hastings.

In the 2020 Alma Katsu historical horror novel The Deep, Jessop is a secondary character. The fictional main character meets Jessop while working on the Titanic, who offers her a job and subsequently works with her on the Britannic.

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After surviving all three disasters, Violet Jessop would become known as "Miss Unsinkable"

By Katie Serena. Published September 15, 2017. Updated December 20, 2017

From the moment Violet Jessop was born, it was clear that she was a survivor. Of her parents nine children, only six of them survived infancy, Violet being the first. When she was a child, she contracted tuberculosis and though doctors predicted her illness would be fatal, she survived it.

So it should come as no shock that she also survived the most famous ocean disaster of all time, the sinking of the RMS Titanic. What might be a surprise is that she also survived the collisions and sinking’s of the Titanic’s two sister ships, the RMS Olympic and the HMHS Brittanic.

The early 1900’s were a bad time for the White Star Line, but apparently not for Violet Jessop.

In 1910, after working as a stewardess with the Royal Mail Line for two years, Jessop took a job aboard the RMS Olympic. The Olympic was a luxury ship, the largest civilian liner of its time. In the fall of 1911, the Olympic left its port in Southampton and collided with a British warship, the HMS Hawke.

There were no fatalities, and despite damage sustained by the impact, the ship made it back to port without sinking.

After experiencing the almost-sinking of the Olympic, one would think Jessop would be turned off to transatlantic sea travel. However, just seven months later she was back at work with the White Star Line, this time on what they claimed was their most unsinkable ship.

Jessop boarded the RMS Titanic as a stewardess four days before its famous run-in with the iceberg. In her memoirs, she mentions that she was ordered up on deck to serve as an example of how to behave for the non-English speakers who couldn’t understand the instructions being given to them.

“I was ordered up on deck,” she wrote. “Calmly, passengers strolled about. I stood at the bulkhead with the other stewardesses, watching the women cling to their husbands before being put into the boats with their children. Some time after, a ship’s officer ordered us into the boat (16) first to show some women it was safe.”

She watched as the lifeboats were loaded, and made it onto one herself. After spending one night in a lifeboat, Jessop and her fellow survivors were rescued by the RMS Carpathia.

An artist rendering of the sinking of the RMS Titanic.

Yet again, despite witnessing the tragedy of the Titanic and spending the night in a freezing lifeboat, Violet Jessop continued to serve as a stewardess.

In 1916, during World War I, the White Star Line converted some of their ships into hospitals. One of these converted ships was the HMHS Britannic, upon which Jessop was serving as a stewardess for the British Red Cross.

On the morning of November 21st, the Britannic sank in the Aegean Sea, due to a mysterious explosion. To this day, scientists have yet to reach a definitive conclusion as to what caused the blast, though British authorities believed that it was either struck by a torpedo or hit a mine planted by German forces.

She described watching the scene from her lifeboat in her memoirs.

The Britannic going down.

“The white pride of the ocean’s medical world … dipped her head a little, then a little lower and still lower,” she recalled. “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.”

The Britannic sank in 57 minutes, killing 30 people and nearly taking Jessop’s life as well. As the ship sank, the propellers were still spinning and began sucking lifeboats under them. Jessop jumped out of her lifeboat to safety but received a traumatic head injury in the process.

“I lept into the water but was sucked under the ship’s keel which struck my head,” she wrote, describing the incident in her memoirs. “I escaped, but years later when I went to my doctor because of a lot of headaches, he discovered I had once sustained a fracture of the skull!”

After surviving one near-sinking and two actual sinking’s, many expected Violet Jessop to retire from her life at sea. However, after a brief hiatus, she returned to work for the White Star Line in 1920 and later the Red Star Line.

During the rest of her sea-faring career, Violet Jessop would complete two around-the-world cruises and have a short-lived marriage before retiring to Great Ashfield in Suffolk, where she passed away at the ripe old age of 83.