Hilda Ellis was born in Great Britain in 1886.
Unmarried, she was a qualified nurse and some time before the Great War, had immigrated to Canada and settled in St. Thomas, Ontario. There, she found employment in her profession, at a nursing home run by a widowed English lady named Mrs. Dolphin.
Mrs. Dolphin, who had one son and two daughters, had first set up the home after the death of her husband in the early years of the twentieth century and by 1915, had decided that her eldest daughter, named Avis, then aged twelve years, should have an English education.
At about the same time, Miss Ellis’ friend, another Englishwoman named Sarah Smith, decided to return to her home in Gloucestershire as her sister was dangerously ill and Hilda Ellis determined to go with her and take a long overdue holiday. Taking advantage of this opportunity, Mrs. Dolphin decided to send Avis to her parents’ home in Worcestershire, in their company. Consequently, they all booked second cabin passage on the Lusitania’s May sailing and at the end of April, set off by rail to join the ship for her morning sailing of 1st May 1915, from New York to Liverpool.
Arriving in sufficient time to catch this sailing, which was delayed, Miss Ellis would have had her last glimpse of the American continent just after mid-day, as the Lusitania left her berth at Pier 54 in New York harbour and slipped out into the North River and began her last trip across the Atlantic. Hilda Ellis and her friend Sarah Smith then together looked after young Avis Dolphin, which was no easy task as the girl suffered pretty much throughout the voyage from seasickness and neuralgia!
Everything then came to an abrupt halt on the early afternoon of 7th May when the liner was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-20, only twelve miles off the coast of southern Ireland and only hours away from her home port! Although Avis Dolphin managed to survive the sinking, both Hilda Ellis and Sarah Smith perished. Nurse Ellis was aged 29 years.
In 1988, at the age of 85 years, Avis Dolphin, then Mrs. Avis Foley, wrote an account of her experiences of the sinking, which mentioned Sarah Smith and Hilda Ellis and a Professor Ian Holbourn, a Scottish laird who had befriended her: -
When the torpedo struck, while we were having our mid-day meal, he (Professor Holbourn), came over to my table and took me (with Miss Ellis and her friend Miss Smith, who was also going to England for a vacation) to his cabin to put lifebelts on us. Miss Smith refused hers as he was a family man. The professor said he would keep it if he could put us in a lifeboat, but as it was being lowered, two men jumped in, causing all its occupants to be pitched into the sea.
The capsizing of that lifeboat effectively killed both Hilda Ellis and Sara Smith as both must have been drowned as a result - Hilda Ellis’s lifebelt availing her not at all!
Professor Holbourn, like Avis Dolphin, did survive, however and once safely on shore, probably at the young girl’s insistence he tried to discover any news of either of them, as she later related: -
Before leaving Queenstown, the Professor had made enquiries about Miss Ellis and Miss Smith and had been to the mortuaries to see if they were among the dead. Sadly nothing was ever discovered about them. My mother had written to the family of Miss Ellis, but no more was heard of her or Miss Smith.
Some time after the sinking, there must have been some speculation over whether Hilda Ellis’ body had been found, however, because Cunard received a cable from New York on 18th May 1915 which stated: -
LUSITANIA IDENTIFIED REMAINS AGENTS ADVICE DO NOT FORWARD HILDA ELLIS UNTIL SISTER NOTIFIED ALL RELATIVES ENGLAND.
Her body had not been identified, however, nor would it ever be and as a consequence, Hilda Ellis has no known grave but the sea!
Cunard Records, PRO BT 100/345, Seven Days to Disaster, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Avis Foley, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.