The Crew

It is interesting to note that the Times report of the survivors listed only seven of the European crew as having made it ashore at Alexandria. However, other reports of the event claim 32 of the European crew survived. Certainly by comparing The Times list of crew against the Commonwealth War Graves Commission list of victims it becomes clear that the original number of seven survivors was a gross underestimate. That then provokes some questions because it shows a much higher survival rate of the European crew than of the passengers. This would not have been seen very well by the public back in Britain. We wonder if censors found it politic to under-report the number of surviving crew.

However we would also note that initial reports of the survivors were wrong as the Ning Chow had picked up those from the broken lifeboat and took them to Malta rather than Alexandria. Amongst those who ended up on this boat was Charles Martin.

This is a photo of George Dewey, the wireless operator.

The Times list of survivors

Mary Pennington - General Stewardess

Born Mary Ann Turner, she started work as a chambermaid in the household of Lord Lister, of antiseptic fame. According to family history, she became ladies' maid to Lord Lister's sister.

She gave up that job to marry Francis Pennington, son of an Italian immigrant from Naples called Salvatore Laudicino. Francis' mother had remarried and Pennington was his stepfather's name - so not only was Mary a Mrs, not a Miss, by rights she should have been Laudicino not Pennington.

Francis Pennington ran off with another woman, leaving Mary to cope alone with two small children. They had fish and chips one evening, wrapped in newspaper, and in that piece of newspaper was an advertisement for P&O stewardess positions. With her experience as a ladies maid, P&O snapped her children were duly sent off to stay with an aunt.

She related to her daughter many years later that, at the time of the sinking, she was aft looking after children while their parents were at lunch in the dining saloon forward. The ship went down by the head, so fast there was no time to lower the boats, they had to cut the falls. It has always been maintained that she escaped into a lifeboat with a baby in her arms - but no babies are listed as survivors. So did the baby not survive the open boat? Or was the 'baby' in fact a young child who did survive? That remains a mystery.

Mary continued to work as a first class stewardess with P&O until 1940. She had a signed photo of Mary Pickford, and she knew Gandhi - presumably on Gandhi's trip to London on the Rajputana in 1931, as she worked on that ship.

She later married a much younger man, a musician called Rogers, who ended up as band leader on P&O's Canberra.

Other Possible Survivors (on Times crew list but not shown in CWGC)

Official Victims (CWGC)