Agnes McGregor was born in Port Glasgow, Renfrewshire, Scotland, on the 26th January 1871, the daughter of William and Jane McGregor (nee Watson). Her father
was a boilermaker, and Agnes was the second eldest of five known children in the family. By 1915, the family home was at 18, Buchanan Street, Partick, Glasgow, Lanarkshire, Scotland.
On completing her education, she became a cotton weaver, and later a housekeeper, before becoming a professional stewardess in the Mercantile Marine.
She worked on passenger liners operating out of the port of Glasgow, and her usual ship was the Anchor Liner S.S. Cameronia upon which she engaged at Glasgow on the 15th April 1915. However, the British Admiralty requisitioned the Cameronia for war use as a troop ship at the end of April 1915, and on the 1st May 1915; nine crew members not needed for her new rôle, (stewards, stewardesses and a matron) were transferred to the Lusitania. These included Agnes McGregor who transferred in time for what became the Lusitania's final voyage to Liverpool at a monthly rate of pay of £4-0s.-0d.
What must have seemed at first to be a stroke of good fortune certainly turned sour for her when the ship was torpedoed and sunk just six days later on the afternoon of the 7th May, by the German submarine, U-20! At this time, she was only 250 miles away from her home port and only 12 miles off the coast of southern Ireland. Out of 22 stewardesses who sailed from New York, only nine survived.
Agnes McGregor was not amongst this six. She was aged 44 years and as her body was not recovered and identified afterwards her name is embossed on the Mercantile Marine Memorial at Tower Hill, London.
Scotland Select Births and Baptisms 1564 – 1950, 1871 Census of Scotland, 1881 Census of Scotland, 1891 Census of Scotland, 1901 Census of Scotland, Cunard Records, Commonwealth War Grave Commission, Port-Glasgow Express and Observer, UniLiv. D/92/6/1, PRO BT 100/345, PRO BT 334, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.
Revised & Updated – 19th December 2024.