Annie Robinson
Forty-year-old Annie Robinson was a stewardess on E deck of Titanic. After feeling the impact of the ship, she woke, dressed and on leaving her cabin, spotted water “within six steps of coming on to E deck.” Annie had already survived an impact with an iceberg on a previous ship, The Lake Champlain. But her experience on the Titanic was to scar her for the rest of her tragically short life- and ultimately end it.
The Captain hurried past and ordered Annie to put on her life jacket. Realizing things were dangerous, Annie turned her attention to safely evacuating all the ladies on her deck. She knocked on cabin doors and alerted the passengers, ensuring they made it safely to the lifeboats. In all, Annie rescued seven ladies, a maid, and a governess. Finally, she boarded lifeboat 11. She sailed away from the Titanic at 1.40 am, 45 minutes before the ship went down.
After the ordeal was over, Annie carried on working aboard ships. In 1913, she was a stewardess on the Galatea when the British king and queen were aboard. The royal couple apparently spent a long time in conversation with Annie about the disaster. But on October 9, 1914, Annie was traveling across the Atlantic again-this time as a passenger. She was on her way to Boston to visit her daughter, Gladys. The journey would probably have conjured bad memories in the best of circumstances. But then the ship hit very thick fog.
Witnesses say Annie became very anxious about this, while the sound of the foghorn “worked on her nerves.” She was said to be very afraid of another disaster. She was last seen in the main salon of the ship at 10.30 pm on a Friday night. The next day, she did not turn up to breakfast. Nor was she found onboard the ship. So terrified was Annie, of being involved in a third disaster that it seems she decided to end herself quickly by jumping into the ocean. Her body was never found.
Sources For Further Reading:
Insider – 43 Secrets You Never Knew About the Titanic and The People Aboard It
Wired – How to Escape a Sinking Ship (Like, Say, the Titanic)
National Post – How A Baker Survived the Titanic Sinking by Getting Really Drunk
New York Post – Forgotten Journal Reveals How Man Survived 1912 Disaster
The Independent – Curse of The Titanic: What Happened to Those Who Survived?
Encyclopedia Titanica – The Mystery of Rhoda Abbott Revealed
BBC News – Titanic: The Final Messages from A Stricken Ship
Get Surrey – The Rarely Told Story of Jack Phillips, The Titanic Hero from Surrey
History Collection – Haunting Photographs and Quotes from Titanic Survivors
History Collection – The Haunting Last Messages from The Titanic
History Collection – 40 Facts about the Titanic They Definitely Didn’t Teach Us in the Movie
History Collection – 12 Famous People Who Didn’t Board the Titanic
History Collection – How the US Navy Helped Find Titanic and Other Sunken Ships
History Collection – This Ship Disaster was the Titanic of the 19th Century