Captain W. H. Selby Hall

The commander of the SS Persia was Captain Hall, he was born 13th of September 1858 in Greenhithe, Kent, just across the Thames from Tilbury Docks, from where he would later sail regularly as a P&O Captain. He was the son of Walter Rowland Hall, RN Captain (Coastguard). Captain Hall was a member of the Royal Navy Reserve. There is surprising little information available with relation to him. We know he had a wife called Mary and a son called Charles Ottley Hall, who died in 1912 at the age of 21, and was buried in Portslade, East Sussex.

Lt Colonel Henry Backhouse

He was on the Persia, travelling  to Port Said, to rejoin his regiment, the 1/7th Cheshires. The regiment was then at Wardan in Egypt, where they had gone on 13th Dec, aboard the HMT Ascania.  They then fought in the Palestine Campaign. 

He was born in Rochdale in about December 1873, and was therefore 42 at the time of his death, the son of Edna Backhouse and her late second husband George Backhouse. Although he was the Managing Director of his father's paper-making firm, in Macclesfield, he had always been a member of the Territorial Regiment, had served in the Boer War (pictured below at the time) and re-joined at the start of the First World War.  Family information and the appropriate War Diaries indicate that he led the Regiment at the Suvla Bay Landings. Due to health problems he had been hospitalised in Malta. Some newspaper reports at the time refer to him as Acting Brigadier General Harry Backhouse.

The Colemans

Franck Morris Coleman was born in London in 1860. He was married in 1894 in Barton Regis in Gloucestershire and lived in Beckenham and that time of the sinking. He was the proprietor of the Times of India (founded in 1839 by his family). He was travelling with his son Arthur Morris Coleman, born in Bristol on 30/03/1899, who was a student at Charterhouse. Both perished. His younger brother Horace Franck Coleman (b.1900) was also at Charterhouse.

The company that owns the Times of India these days (which is one of the largest circulation newspapers in the world) still bears the Coleman name. Frank Coleman came from a family of printers in London for the East India Company; he was the General Manager, “Times of India” 1895; attached to Government Press, in Ceylon, for three years, and then Manager of the “Financial News”, London; returned to India in 1901 on a Commission with Government to reduce expenditure on printing. 

The McGinn Family

William George McGinn was a jute merchant who married Mary Elizabeth Everitt at Calcutta on October 22nd, 1914. She subsequently returned to England to give birth to a son (Quintilla). The mother, son and ayah all went down with the Persia. 

Major Horace Hayman Wilson

He was an officer in the King's Own (Royal Lancaster Regiment). He was born on the 21st Aug 1874 at Halifax, Nova Scotia. His wife was Isabel Veronica (nee) FAULDER.

Homer Russell Salisbury

He was a Seventh-day Adventist educator and administrator who started the first Adventist school in England. He was born in Battle Creek, Michigan on May 27, 1870 to Burleigh Russell Salisbury. He had a brother who migrated to Australia. He married Lenna Elizabeth Whitney.

In 1901 Salisbury founded the first Seventh-day Adventist school in England, Duncombe Hall College, and was the principal there for five years. In 1904 he became a minister. In 1905 Salisbury became president of the South England Conference. He taught at Claremont Union College in South Africa. Salisbury was made president of the Indian Union Mission in 1913.

He boarded the SS Persia in Marseille, headed for India and was lost in the sinking.

William Orr

He belonged to a family tradition of fourteen William Orr's of Kaim mostly called a "Portioner of Kaim". The name derived from a person who rented a portion of land from the landlord. William was born in 1866 at Kaim and was the last of the line dating back to 1570. He was not only a farmer he indulged in business ventures and was a partner of Abbot Engineering in Paisley. William was also an agent of Bullock Brothers a large importing firm dealing in rice from Burma. He did not survive the sinking. His nephew, James Bulloch Dickie, did survive the sinking but died a few months later in Burma. 

Project I know of has estimated over 100,000 Te REO, 1500 Te of Sc oxide plus Nb and Ta. Onsite infrastructure includes dual rail line, Hydro, natural gas and road. Town 25 miles away. HAs closure plan and environmental bond in place. Owner sells tailings presently as is for $100-300/tonne fob plant. Generates $1-3M/yr revenue. 

Major Hon. Edward Stuart St. Aubyn

He was born on 30 October 1858. He was the son of John St. Aubyn, 1st Baron St. Levan of St. Michaels Mount and Lady Elizabeth Clementina Townshend. He was unmarried and drowned in the sinking. 

He fought in the Egyptian Campaign in 1882. He fought in the Boer War between 1899 and 1900, where he was mentioned in despatches twice. He was invested as a Knight of Grace, Order of St. John of Jerusalem (K.G.St.J.). He fought in the First World War gaining the rank of Major in the service of the King's Royal Rifle Corps. He was GSO between 1914 and 1915. He was Lieutenant-Colonel of the 12th Battalion, King's Royal Rifle Corps. He was serving as the King's Messenger in this fatal last journey. There is a memorial at St Michael's Mount, Cornwall, the family home. 

Robert Vane Russell

Mr. Russell was born in 1873 and educated at Winchester College. Here is a photo from his student days. 

He was a member of the Indian Civil Service, and was attached to the Central Provinces. He was in charge of the Census operations in 1901. After his work on the Census was completed he was appointed Director of the Ethnographic Survey, and from time to time issued several valuable monographs on the Tribes and Castes of the Province. In 1914 he was invalided to England suffering from a painful disease. During his leisure from official duties he devoted his time to the preparation of an important work on the Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces, which was published by the Local Government through Macmillan & Co. He was not only an indefatigable field anthropologist, but one widely read in the literature of the subject. In his last major work he advanced novel views on tribal organization, Totemism, and other questions, which the study of the forest tribes suggested. 

Victor Garland Shilston

He was an engineer. He worked for both T.D. Shilston, of Newcastle. & Messrs Cook & Son, in Egypt. He was a partner in the firm of Boyle Shilston & Co., Nile Engine Works, Cairo. Some records show him travelling with his wife. 

Miss Gladys Enid Macdonald

She was the daughter of an Australian, her father being James Middleton Macdonald, chaplain at Oxford University and later a senior chaplain in India. Enid’s brother Roy was a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy when he was drowned aboard HMS Hawke in October 1914; the Macdonalds therefore lost both of their children at sea during the war. In the official records, Enid’s address is stated as 60 Stanhope Gardens, Kensington (near to the museums). She was on the Persia travelling to India to marry Rowland Hatt-Cook, of the Public Works Department of the Indian Civil Service. Their wedding was due to be held in Bombay in January 1916. Hatt-Cook later served as an officer in the Royal Garrison Artillery.

Benvenuto Maffesanti 

This man was an Italian national, owner of the Kolar Gold Fields in India (though some reports speak of a Lead mine). He was rescued and was taken to Malta, so figured as deceased in some early reports. 

Mr. Gustadji Muncherji Cooper

One of the stranger records relates to this passenger. His reason for travelling was because he had been a defendant in a legal case in Bombay in 1915 (Haji Umar Abdul Rahiman -v- Gustadji Muncherji Cooper), which he had then taken to appeal to the Privy Council in London. He survived the sinking.

Capt. Edward Rolleston Palmer Berryman

Ted was sailing to India to rejoin his regiment, the 39th Garhwal Rifles, a regiment in the Indian Army which was based in Lansdowne, a hill station in the United Provinces. 

Here is what his sister wrote about it in the 1980s:

"Casualties were heavy, and Ted’s name was not on the … list of survivors published. Nell’s reaction was to go up to her room and write him a long letter. ‘I know he’s all right,’ she said firmly when she came down. Perhaps the fortune teller’s prediction that ‘your man won’t ever get killed or drownded’ gave her confidence, but her sisters could not stand the strain as time went by with no news and they went to consult this same fortune teller, the gardener’s wife.  Mrs Ridler put out the cards, shaking her head. ‘It’s all black, all black – ‘ ….

The photograph below shows Ted Berryman in his uniform of 2/39th Garhwal Rifles.

Source: Benedicta Makin

Then the family received this telegram:

Source: Benedicta Makin

Lt Owen Gough

Lieutenant Owen Gough, MC, 12th Indian Cavalry. He was lost we he went below decks to retrieve his cavalry sword and unfortunately went down with the ship. 

George Hoggan

He was the only Australian passenger lost on the SS Persia. The Brisbane Courier-Mail reported that he was the son of Mr and Mrs H. E. Hoggan of Lincluden, Frederick St, Rockdale. He was well known in commercial circles in Australia, including Queensland and New Zealand. He was for many years one of the staff of Messrs Scott Henderson & Company of Sydneyand before going abroad acted as an interstate representative. He resigned his position in June to go into business on his own account and left Sydney in July on a business tour through Canada, America, England and the Continent. 

He joined the SS Persia at Marseilles to journey to Egypt, and intended joining the Medina on his return home to Sydney.

Captain Humphrey Richard Locke Lawrence

An officer in the 34th Sikh Pioneers that went down on the SS Persia. He was born on 24 March 1888 in London to Major General William Alexander Lawrence and Adelaide, his wife.

In 1901 he was at The Grange School in Folkestone and then Christ Church College, Oxford. His name appeared on 9 September 1908 with a first Commission as a British Officer of the Indian Army. He was commissioned as a Lieutenant on 9 December 1910, his temporary captaincy in the 34th Sikh Pioneers was gazetted on 30 December 1915. In 1913 he married Mary Claudine Wrey.

In June 1915 he was wounded in France. He is commemorated on the Chatby Memorial in Alexandria. His effects amounted to £55. Probate was granted to his widow at St. Helen’s, Sandhurst.

Captain Arthur Freer Spreckley

Arthur Freer Spreckley (seen below) was born into a wealthy brewing family in Worcester and attended the Bromsgrove School. He was a Lt. in the Royal Gurkhas, and Capt.in the Indian Army. Originally commissioned into the 2nd battalion Worcester Regiment he transferred to the Indian Army in 1909. He married Ada Blanche McMinn in Bengal in Sept 1912, and had a daughter, Pamela, in 1914, and a son in 1915, both born in India. He was wounded in France in October 1915 and in consequence he was sent back to India. 

The family were due to return to India in November 1915, but the son was poorly, so was left behind whilst the rest of the family sailed on SS Persia. They never made it. The last sighting of the family was the mother frantically seeking the daughter, around the decks of the ship, followed by the father seeking the mother.

Robert N. McNeely

Robert Ney McNeely, named by his father after Marshall Ney of France, was born on November 12, 1883, on a farm in Jackson Township, near Waxhaw, North Carolina. He grew up in a large family, one of the eleven children of Robert and Henrietta Belk McNeely. 

McNeely worked as a school teacher from 1900-02 and as a rural mail carrier from 1903-05. McNeely studied law under Judge James C. MacRae and in 1907 was admitted to the bar at Monroe, North Carolina, where he began to practice law. He served as Monroe's City Clerk in 1907 and as the town's Treasurer in 1908. He served a term as a Representative in North Carolina's General Assembly from 1909-10 and was "interested in legislation affecting good roads and pure election law." On May 31, 1910, he received his Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of North Carolina. In 1914 he was elected to the North Carolina State Senate. 

On January 25, 1915, McNeely took and passed the competitive examination for appointment to the Consular Service. In the spring of 1915 he became engaged to Wilma Whitacre of West Union, Iowa. Miss Whitacre was a singer with the Beulah Buck Quartet of Chicago, and had met McNeely during performances in North Carolina. The two were planning to wed in May of 1916 and to reside in Monroe, where McNeely was building a bungalow that would be their first home together. These plans changed suddenly when, on October 18, 1915, McNeely was appointed American Consul at Aden.

McNeely telegraphed Whitacre asking her to come East and marry him so that they could travel together to Aden. Although Whitacre wanted to pursue this course of action, her parents prevailed upon her to travel in May and marry McNeely in Aden. On November 27th, McNeely sailed from New York to Liverpool on the Holland liner Ryndam. He remained in London until December 18th when he departed aboard the SS Persia, which was scheduled to stop at Aden. 

Eleanor Velasco Thornton 

She was an English actress and artist's model. She drowned in the sinking. Her real name was Nelly Thornton, born 15 April 1880 at 18 Cottage Grove, Stockwell. Her father was Frederick Thornton, an Australian telegraph engineer, her mother was Sarah Ann Thornton née Rooke.

She started working in the office of a motoring magazine, Car Illustrated after leaving school. At 22 she was the secretary of John Edward Scott-Montagu, who became the second Baron Montagu of Beaulieu in 1905. She became his mistress and they had an illegitimate daughter, Joan Eleanor Thornton that she gave up for adoption. Thornton posed for sculptor Charles Sykes and may have been the model for his Spirit of Ecstasy, which is used as the bonnet/hood ornament on cars manufactured by Rolls-Royce, as well as a precursor sculpture, The Whisperer.

Engineer Lt. Arthur Twining Roch

He was a naval engineer. He was born 10th of Feb 1872, the son of John J. and Martha Elizabeth Roch, of Brownslade, Castlemartin, Pembroke. He was the husband of Catherine Roch, of Clouds Hill House, St. George, Bristol. His voyage was to be from Marseilles to Port Said where he join his ship, HMS Prosperine, but he drowned in the sinking.  

Kathleen Stoehr

Born Kathleen Hudson, she married Charles Felix Stoehr in Stratford upon Avon in 1914. He was an Under Officer, commissioned in the Corps of Royal Engineers at the age of eighteen. He came to India early in his career, and served in the Military Works Services, and later in the 3rd Bombay Sappers and Miners. When war broke out in 1914 he was in England on leave, and on his return to the East was posted to Aden. Shortly afterwards his wife was drowned on her way out to join him.

Christian & Alexander Grant

On board was Mrs Christian Grant (née Maitland), who had married Alexander Grant just six weeks previously.  

Born in Aberdeen in 1886, she was the daughter of the recent Lord Provost of Aberdeen (1911–14), Adam Maitland.  She graduated BSc from Aberdeen University and MB ChB from Edinburgh University in 1911, when women were still taught separately from men.  She won the Bathgate prize for Materia Medica and was awarded the Gilfillan Memorial Prize for “the most distinguished woman in medicine”.

Dr Maitland went out to Ajmer, Rajputana in 1912 as the first medical missionary of the  Presbytery of Aberdeen.  There she met her husband-to-be, Alexander (Alec) Grant, a missionary from Glasgow.  A bout of enteric fever in the autumn of 1914 compelled her to return home to recuperate.  The Rev. A. C. Grant came home on special leave, and they were married on 18th November 1915 at her home, Rubislaw Den House in Aberdeen.

The Rev A.C. Grant was the son of Mr  Colquhoun F. Grant, superintendent engineer of the Clan Line residing  in Hyndland, Glasgow. Alec graduated in arts with honours at Glasgow University in 1906 and  became the travelling secretary of the student movement for one year. After his term of office he took the theological course at the United Free Church College in Glasgow. He was a student volunteer and in 1910 and offered his services to the Foreign Missions Committee of the United Free Church. Alec was sent to Rajputana where he met his future wife . He was aged 31 at the time of his marriage.

They were returning to their posts in India on the SS Persia when it was torpedoed.  They were both drowned, the last sighting being of them holding hands on deck.  This was witnessed by Dr Lilian Cook, originally from Inverness, who survived thanks to swimming lessons she had received.

Julia Anna Anson Minnitt & Christine Minnitt

Born Julia Anna Galloway, in India, she was born on the 21st of April 1879 in Bengal, the daughter of John and Mary Galloway. In June of 1909 at Bangalore in Madras she married John Anson Minnitt, an engineer from Derbyshire. He ran an engineering business in Bombay. She returned to England to have a daughter, Christine, who was born in March 1915 at Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire. They were returning to India when the ship was torpedoed and both mother and baby were lost. 

Miss Mary Fernandez

She was the ayah (nursery maid) to Mrs Bird. Her address was “Ayah’s House", 26 King Edward Road, Hackney.

The Hutchison Party

This group consisted on Major George Hutchison, Mrs Eulalie Edith Hutchison, their two children David (3 years old) and Margaret McCall Hutchison (4 years old), the children's nurse Isabella (Isobel) Sharp and Mrs Hutchison's sister, Mrs Agnes Shanks. They were bound for Karachi, except Mrs Shanks, who was going to Bombay. The father of the family was attached to the 23rd Sikh Regiment, where he was the Chief Medical Officer. When war broke out he was transferred to England to join the battle in France.

Not wanting the family to be left in India without him, his wife and children also returned to Britain, where Eulalie Hutchison went to stay with her family in Glasgow. 

In 1915, the Major was posted back to India and his family went with him. Of the group, all survived except the daughter Margaret. 

Mrs Beryl Graham

Born Beryl Cleaver on the 25th of August, 1883  in Liverpool. She was the daughter of Harris Pengeot CLEAVER and Helen Frances Phoebe Cleaver, nee MAKIN. She was the wife of Charles Townley Graham. The couple had at least one daughter, Nancy Graham, who was born in Rangoon in 1909. 

Frederick Featherstone Pickard

One of the victims. He was born in 1863 (1869?) in Stanhope, Co. Durham. He was a Chief Engineer in the Royal Indian Marine from 1886-1911 (16/2/209-10 16/3/410). He married Maude Hamilton Lindsay on the 21st of October 1901 in Bombay. They had three sons, one of whom was Douglas Ralph Muschamp Pickard, born in Bombay in 1904.

Henrietta Maria Frances Hughes

Born in 1864 in West Derby Lancashire. She did not survive the sinking. 

Stuart W. Boyd

Born in Canada in 1884, however he was raised in New Zealand. He was part of the ship's crew. He was unmarried and the son of Mr and Mrs McDuff Boyd of Hastings, NZ.  

Below can be seen his obituary in a New Zealand newspaper. Our thanks to Brett McKay for discovering this connection to the Persia.

Sadasiv Maninarayen Dikshit

An Indian lawyer who sailed to London to argue a court case. He had arrived from Bombay in April of 2015 on SS Egypt. He was 45 at the time of his arrival. He lived at 21 Bromwell Rd in South West London. 

Inder Singh

Inder Singh was part of the entourage of the entourage of Maharaja Jagatjit Singh of Kapurthala. 

He proposed that the Maharaja along with some chosen companions stay back in Marseilles and take another ship, while he himself offered to sail in the 'targeted' ship. The SS Persia carried all personal belongings of the Maharaja and a significant portion of his jewellery. The Maharaja's sunken treasure, amassed in London and the USA, was worth GBP' 1 million at that time comprised of gold and silver bullion, gemstones and jewellery, its value could be as much as GBP 50 million today.

While the impressive bearing of Inder Singh, still conveyed the dubious impression of an Indian celebrity travelling on the ship, the Maharaja himself not on board. 

Inder Singh, though a middle-aged man at that time, enjoyed robust health and could swim at length. Inder Singh was lucky enough to spot a big wooden raft falling off the ship. He swam up to it and perched himself atop this 'floating stretcher'. He floated in the freezing saline waters of the sea for three days till a rescue ship came looking for survivors.

The injured Inder Singh was taken to an island hospital where he was given the much-needed medical relief. The Maharaja, having providentially avoided travelling on the S.S. Persia, left by Dutch boat, Prinz Due Nederland, for Egypt, where he changed into the ship Medina and arrived safely in Mumbai on January 18, 1916.

John de Renzy

This passenger was shown as a New Zealander. He was a representative/partner of the Auckland firm of S.J. Best, a paint and varnish manufacturer, and was on a business trip to Europe that he combined with pleasure. 

Here is his photo:

And his obituary:

George Henry Dewey

The Marconi Operator of the SS Persia was George Henry Dewey. A native of Leicestershire, he was 22 at the time of the sinking and did not survive. After finishing his education, he had initially entered the post office as a telegrapher and clerk, and then studied at the British School of Telegraphy and entered the service of the Marconi company. In his short career, he had served aboard five other ships before his appointment to his position aboard the Persia.

Frank Owen Brown

Born in 1887, Frank was the fourth eldest of William and Jane Owen Brown’s children. The 1891 census shows a four year old Frank living at 97 Ravensbourne Road, Greenwich with his parents and siblings.

By the time of the 1901 census, the Brown’s had moved to 144 St. John’s Road, Deptford. It is possible that Frank’s absence from the 1911 census is due to his being at sea because in between censuses he joined the Mercantile Marine. Frank was a bed steward on the SS Persia and died in the sinking. His address at the time of death was 12 Carlton Villas Welling, Kent. His estate was probated on the  8th of May 1916 to William Owen Brown railway inspector with effects £116 18s. 9d.

Joseph Machado

Was one of the Goan stewards and died in the sinking. He was around 19 years old at the time of the sinking. There is no birth certificates for him as the record keeping in the villages was very poor. Joseph was not actually born in Goa but in Mangalore a town close to Goa, which also had a very large Roman Catholic population some of whom were stewards with the P&O in those days. Most were recruited in Bombay and not from Goa. Apparently a Konkani song (the local Goan language) was composed that told the tale of the sinking of the SS Persia.