The Unsinkable Miss Violet Jessop - White Star Line Stewardess & Nurse

Violet Jessop

Miss Violet Jessop was a twenty-four year old White Star Line stewardess, who was working on Titanic’s maiden voyage when it hit an iceberg in April 1912 and sunk with great loss of life. She survived the disaster, and was also involved in the incidents that happened to it's two sister ships Olympic and Britannic. As she had survived three maritime disasters, Miss Jessop subsequently became known as "Miss Unsinkable",

Born and raised in Argentina, she was the oldest child of Irish parents. Her mother, Catherine, was born of a wealthy family who ran a photographic business and lived on fashionable Merrion Square in Dublin. William and Catherine Jessop who were married in 1886 and were blessed by the arrival of Violet in October 1887. She contracted tuberculosis as a young child and was given just a few months to live but miraculously, she managed to make a full recovery and survived the disease.

The Jessop family lived in Mendoza, where William became stationmaster, then a 'fuel inspector,' He died of cancer in 1903 when aged only 41. Violet was aged just 15, and was stricken at his death.

After her father died, the family returned to England and Violet was educated in a convent school. Her mother had worked as a Stewardess for the Royal Mail so Violet decided to follow in her footsteps and also make a living for herself in this way.

The first in a long line of struggles for Violet was finding a ship that would take her on. She was just 21 years old at the time and most women working as stewardesses in the early 1900s were middle-aged or older. Employers believed that her youth and good looks would be a disadvantage to her, and may cause "problems” with the other crew and passengers.

VIOLET'S MARRIAGE CERTIFICATE

 Over the course of her career, she did get at least three marriage proposals while working on various ships - one from an incredibly wealthy first-class passenger - but she didn't accept any of them.Violet did marry another Steward - John James Lewis - much later in her life, but it was a short lived relationship.

Violet solved the problem of getting a job as a stewardess by making herself look much older and less attractive. She wore frumpy clothing and no make-up, and finally experienced interview success. After a brief stint aboard the Orinoco, a Royal Mail Line steamer, in 1908, she was hired by the White Star Line.

HMS OLYMPIC

Violet started out on the line’s Magestic, switching to the Olympic in 1910. Despite the long hours and minimal pay, she enjoyed working aboard the massive ship. She had initially had some concerns about the rough weather conditions while traveling across the Atlantic, but she liked that the Americans treated her more like a person while she served them.

Jessop had been working aboard the Olympic when it collided with HMS Hawke in 1911. The event was a terrible accident, but no one was seriously injured or killed in the accident.  While the subsequent inquiry proved a legal and financial nightmare for the White Star Line, the fact that damage was minimal reinforced the company’s claim that their three great liners were totally immune to disaster.  

TITANIC POSTCARD

Violet was happy on the Olympic and didn't really want to join the Titanic but was persuaded by her friends who thought it would be a 'wonderful experience'. So Violet, 'dressed in a new ankle-length brown suit' set out in a horse-drawn cab to join the brand new ship at her berth in Southampton. When they arrived on board to begin work, Jessop and the other crew members were very satisfied by their quarters. She liked to take in the fresh air on deck before retiring for the night:

"If the sun did fail to shine so brightly on the fourth day out, and if the little cold nip crept into the air as evening set in, it only served to emphasize the warmth and luxuriousness within."

THOMAS ANDREWS

In her memoirs, Jessop mentions Titanic's designer Thomas Andrews and speaks of him fondly. 

  "Often during our rounds we came upon our beloved designer going about unobtrusively with a tired face but a satisfied air. He never failed to stop for a cheerful word, his only regret that we were 'getting further from home.' We all knew the love he had for that Irish home of his and suspected that he longed to get back to the peace of its atmosphere for a much needed rest and to forget ship designing for a while."

Violet also claims to have been friends with Scottish violinist Jock Hume who played in the Orchestra. He was one of the few people working on the ship whom she identified by name.

In her memoirs she says that on Titanic's maiden voyage she brought a copy of a translated Hebrew prayer that an old Irish woman had given her. Upon settling down in her bunk she found that prayer and read it, then made her roommate Elizabeth Leather read it. It was a strangely worded prayer that Violet says was supposed to protect her against fire and water.

Violet was a devout Catholic who carried a rosary in her apron and believed strongly in the power of prayer.  Before embarking on the Titanic, she had no way of knowing how important these symbols of her faith might become to her as events unfolded.

Violet wrote that she was "comfortably drowsy" in her bunk, but not quite asleep when the collision occurred and then a member of staff came to summon her. She left everything behind - including her toothbrush - because she had no idea what was about to happen.

 

 ''I was ordered up on deck. 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. Sometime after, a ship's officer ordered us into the boat first to show some women it was safe. As the boat was being lowered the officer called: 'Here, Miss Jessop. Look after this baby.' And a bundle was dropped on to my lap.'

After eight hours at sea in a lifeboat, carrying a strangers baby and keeping it safe from harm, Jessop and the infant became one of the small percentage of Titanic passengers and crew that were rescued by the Carpathia. She was still holding fast to the baby she had been given, when the mother of the child found her on board and snatched the child away. Jessop stated that she was never thanked for seeing the child safely through the disaster.

VIOLET JESSOP AS A NURSE IN 1916

Even after the sinking of Titanic, Jessop continued to work for White Star. She went on to serve as a nurse on the RMS Britannic, the third of Ismay’s trio of dream ships during World War I.  

Requisitioned as a hospital ship in 1915, her name changed to HMHS Britannic which stood for His Majesty’s Hospital Ship Britannic. On November 21, 1916, Britannic suddenly sank in the Aegean Sea between troop tours. In an uncanny repetition of Titanic, Britannic sank in a mere 50 minutes.  Among those rescued was none other than Violet Jessop. 

 I leapt into the water but was sucked under the ship’s keel which struck my head. 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!

She joked that she only survived because of her thick hair, which cushioned the blow.  She also stated this time she remembered to grab her toothbrush before evacuating - unlike she did with the Titanic.

HMHS BRITANNIC

Even this latest disaster was not enough to deter Violet. After the war, ships were becoming a more and more popular form of transport. Even cruise ships were starting to emerge. Violet left the White Star Line for the Red Star Line and worked on a ship doing world cruises for several years. She did take a clerical job after World War II, but went back to working on Royal Mail ships before she retired at the age of 61. The rest of her life was spent gardening on land and raising chickens.

VIOLET JESSOP ( far right) & TITANIC SURVIVORS

Jessop claimed to have received a telephone call, one a stormy night, from a person who asked Jessop if she saved a baby on the night that the Titanic sank. "Yes," Jessop replied. The voice then said "I was that baby," laughed, and hung up.

Jessop was interviewed for Woman Magazine when the film A Night to Remember was released in 1958 and an later years she attended a Titanic Anniversary Dinner in London with other survivors of the disaster.

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

SHORT DRAMATIZATION OF VIOLET JESSOP'S LIFE 

SHORT DOCUMENTARY ON THE LIFE OF VIOLET JESSOP