Janette Mary Isabell Birrell, always known as “Mary”, was born in Emerald Hill, South Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, on the 25th September 1858, the daughter of James and Stewart Birrell (née Bennett). The family home was at 69. Cecil Street, Emerald Hill, Melbourne. Her parents had emigrated from Scotland, and her father, who was an engineer, died in May 1871 in Melbourne. Her mother remarried in 1879, her second husband being Captain Alexander McNeil Boyd, a master mariner.
On the 11th October 1888, she married Joseph Cochrane Macky, a widower with four children, in Melbourne. Her husband was a businessman, local politician, and a founder of the firm - Macky, Logan, Caldwell and Company of Elliot Street, Auckland.
The couple had four children – Stewart, born in 1890, Frank, born in 1891, Dorothy Mary, born in 1894, and Joseph Cecil Douglas, who was born in 1899. The family home was in Auckland.
In 1915, Joseph Macky decided to travel to England, presumably on business, and take his wife and son, J
forces and he had with him a companion named Samuel Jackson Hanna, who was the son of a local solicitor, who also intended to enlist.
In the spring of 1915, the party began their journey on board the Niagara by crossing the Pacific Ocean to the east coast of America, arriving in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on the 10th May. At this point, Jack Macky and his friend went ahead of the couple and embarked on an earlier crossing to England, which may have saved their lives, as they both arrived safely! Mr. and Mrs Macky took a train to New York and boarded the Lusitania as second cabin passengers at her berth at Pier 54 in New York harbour on 1st May 1915, in time for her 10.00 a.m. sailing.
The Lusitania’s 1st May 10.00 a.m. sailing was delayed until the afternoon, however, as she had to embark passengers, crew and cargo from the Anchor Liner the S.S. Cameronia, which had been requisitioned by the British Admiralty for work as a troop ship. She finally left harbour just after mid-day and just six days later, on the afternoon of 7th May, she was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-20. At that point, she was within sight of the coast of southern Ireland and only hours away from her Liverpool destination.
Both Mary and Joseph Macky lost their lives as a result of the torpedoing and as neither of their bodies was ever recovered and identified afterwards, neither has a known grave. Mary Macky was aged 56 years and her husband, 59.
On 19th May 1915, New Zealand newspaper The Otago Witness reported: -
An Auckland telegram states that Mr. John Macky cables that he is safe in London. He arrived a week in advance of the Lusitania, on which his father and mother were passengers.
Both Jack Macky and his friend Samuel Hanna enlisted in the Royal Navy and survived the war having served with distinction. Macky was to win a Military Cross, serving with an armoured car unit in Palestine (presumably a unit under Army command), and Hanna, who was also attached to an armoured car section of The Royal Naval Air Service, went on to win a Distinguished Service Cross in 1917.
Victoria Australia Birth Index 1837 – 1917, Victoria Australia Marriage Index 1837 – 1950, Canadian Passenger Lists 1865 – 1935, U.S. Border Crossings from Canada to U.S. 1895 – 1960, Cunard Records, Auckland Grammar School Chronicle, City of Auckland, Dominion, King’s College Register, Otago Daily Times, Otago Witness, The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, PRO BT 100/345, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Trevor Richards, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.