Sister Survivors

Violet Constance Jessup

Of the three independent travelers, Argentinian-born Violet Jessop (1887-1971) was inarguably, and perhaps undeservedly, the most famous. She survived three disasters at sea, with each of them occurring aboard one of the three Olympic-class sisters. 

Jessop was an ocean liner stewardess and nurse whose first disaster at sea occurred in 1911, when she was aboard RMS Olympic when it collided with the warship HMS Hawke in an incident that greatly damaged Olympic but did not sink the ship. The following year saw her board RMS Titanic for its disastrous maiden voyage, and she was one of the relative few who survived that horrendous event. Finally, in 1916, she was aboard the HMHS Britannic when the doomed vessel began to sink after suffering damage from an enemy weapon during World War I. She narrowly avoided a gruesome death when the lifeboat she boarded was drawn into Britannic’s whirling propellors, killing many people in the processes. Horrified by the sight and sounds of her fellow passengers being chopped to death, Violet Jessop flung herself into the waters of the Aegean Sea and desperately swam for her life to another lifeboat, one well away from the suction of Britannic’s whirling blades. 

Violet Jessop's multiple survival stories earned her the popular nickname "Miss Unsinkable," an unfortunate sobriquet that causes some to conflate her and fellow Titanic survivor Margaret Brown, a woman better known as the “Unsinkable Molly Brown.”

Arthur John Priest

Similar to Violet Jessop, rugged British sailor Arthur Priest (1897-1988) survived the sinkings of RMS Titanic and HMHS Britannic. His shipboard employment primarily focused on tending to fires on steam engines or working to provide them with fuel such as wood or coal while toiling in the hellish temperatures found within steamship boiler rooms. Called a "stoker" or a "fireman" (as in maintaining fires, not extinguishing them), Priest survived collisions and sinkings that involved no fewer than five different ships! 

Arthur Priest was aboard the RMS Asturias in 1908 when the ship, then sailing on its maiden voyage, suffered a collision at sea of an unclear nature. Years later, in 1911, he and Violet Jessop were aboard RMS Olympic when the ship collided with HMS Hawke. Next, he, Jessop, and Archie Jewell were aboard Titanic for its own disastrous maiden voyage. For Priest, salvation on that unforgettable night came by swimming to safety through the freezing waters of the North Atlantic while dressed in scant clothing, an effort from which he suffered frostbite and an injured leg as he struggled to reach a lifeboat. Later, in 1916, Arthur Priest faced two disasters, the first of which saw him emerge relatively unharmed from the wartime loss of HMS Alcantara (an ocean liner converted to an armed merchant cruiser). The second challenge to survival Priest would overcome that year arrived in the form of the destruction of HMHS Britannic, an event that also touched the lives of Violet Jessop and Archie Jewell. Finally, in 1917, Priest successfully escaped the sinking of the HMHS Donegal, a wartime hospital ship destroyed by enemy weaponry.

In surviving five incredible disasters at sea that included four sinking vessels, Arthur John Priest became known as the "Unsinkable Stoker." However, as time progressed to the modern day, public knowledge of his experiences gradually faded, but the seagoing adventures of Violet Jessop and Molly Brown remain somewhat known.

Archie Jewell

The final member of the unfortunate trio of ocean voyagers was British musician Archie Jewell (1892-1951). He, like Violet Jessop and Arthur Priest, also survived the sinkings of the Titanic and Britannic. However, unlike those fellow travelers, Jewell's third marine incident would have a far different outcome. 

Archie Jewell escaped Titanic by boarding a lifeboat without major incident or injury, unlike the frostbitten Arthur Priest. Years later, he was forced to swim for his life from the sinking Britannic to reach safety much as Violet Jessop was forced to do, although his circumstance was such that he jumped into the Aegean Sea from the sinking vessel instead of initially boarding a lifeboat.

Jewell left the White Star line after his second close encounter with the Grim Reaper in 1916, and he signed on as a crew member of the hospital ship HMHS Donegal that same year, unwittingly joining Arthur John Priest once again. Unfortunately for Jewell, Donegal would be attacked and sunk the following year in the English Channel, dragging 12 crew members to the bottom. Archie Jewell was one of those taken down by the sinking vessel. His body was never recovered.

In closing, history records the deadly hazards encountered by the three Olympic-class ships as the sources of countless tales of heroism, cowardice, success, and failure. Lives were changed or cut short, major companies lost owners and top-level officers, and families suffered unimaginable pain and loss. Despite the tragedy and chaos, Violet Jessop, Arthur Priest, and Archie Jewell are unique in that they returned time and again to the sea that repeatedly tried to claim them.

-TechRider