Mary ‘May’ Ellen Harrison was born in Dukinfield, Cheshire, England, on the 21st June 1866, the daughter of James and Elizabeth Ann Harrison (née Howard). Her father was a coal miner.
On the 24th January 1886, she married Samuel Hanson in Dukinfield. He was a local man who, like Mary, worked in the local cotton mills, and they had three sons, named James, Nelson and Samuel, and two daughters, named Amelia and Elizabeth. Sadly, Elizabeth died in 1896, aged two years, and Samuel died in infancy in 1903.
The family home in was at 236, Oaklands Terrace, Higher King Street, Dukinfield, Cheshire and Mary Hanson’s parents, the Harrisons, lived at Peel Street, Dukinfield and her brother, Mr. Nelson Harrison, at 16. Robinson Street, Ashton-under-Lyne.
In March 1912 Samuel Hanson and their two sons emigrated to the United States of America and settled in Central Falls, Rhode Island, where they obtained work in the textile trade, and in June of the same year Mary and Amelia Hanson joined them there. The family address in Central Falls was at 101, Watson Street.
In the spring of 1915, however, the couple decided to return to Great Britain, to visit relatives and as a consequence, booked second cabin passage on the
Lusitania. They left Central Falls at the end of April 1915 and joined the liner in time for her final delayed sailing out of New York harbour, which began in the early afternoon of 1st May. The delay was caused because the
Lusitania had to take on board passengers, crew and cargo from the Anchor Liner
Cameronia which the British Admiralty had requisitioned for use as a troop ship at the end of the previous month.
Six days later, they were both dead - killed after the liner was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine
U-20, within sight of the coast of southern Ireland and about 250 miles away from her Liverpool home port. May Hanson was aged 49 years.
An article in The Hyde Reporter for 15th May 1915 stated: -
Mr. Nelson Harrison has been informed that Mr. and Mrs. Hanson were seen to get into one of the ship’s boats, but on being lowered from the davits, it capsized and the occupants were thrown into the sea.
The lifeboat was probably No. 17. The newspaper report continued: -
Mrs. Hanson’s body was recovered and taken to Queenstown, but the body of her husband is missing. Mrs. Harrison and her family were anxious that the burial of Mrs. Hanson should take place in Dukinfield Cemetery. They have been informed, however, by the Cunard Company, that all bodies with the exception of American citizens would be buried in special graves in Queenstown Cemetery.
In point of fact, Samuel Hanson’s body was one of the earliest to be recovered - even before that of his wife. Her body was recovered at more or less the same time as his, and after being landed at Queenstown, was taken to one of the temporary mortuaries there, where it was given the reference number 72.
After a positive identification had been made, however, as intimated by The Hyde Reporter, it was buried, on 10th May, in The Old Church Cemetery, just outside the town, in Mass Grave C, Row 1, Upper Tier. This was the day on which most of the recovered dead from the sinking were buried after a long funeral procession which began outside the Cunard office at Lynch’s Quay in the town. Samuel Hanson was buried at the same time, at the same grave location, probably next to his wife.
On July 8th 1915, property recovered from her body, which had perhaps aided its identification, was sent on the steamer S.S.
Orduña firstly to Cunard’s New York Office and then on to the Boston office. It was then forwarded Mary Hanson’s son James Hanson, who was administrator of his mother’s estate, and who took charge of it at the Central Falls address, on 19th August 1915.
It consisted of a gold watch and chain, a gold brooch, seven bank drafts drawn on The Cunard Line, each for £15-0s-0d., another Bank draft drawn on The American Line for £4-0s-0d., a £1-0s-0d. treasury note, a 10 shilling (£0-50p.) treasury note, four gold rings, a necklace, and a pair of earrings.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, 1871 Census of England & Wales, 1881 Census of England & Wales, 1891 Census of England & Wales, 1901 Census of England & Wales, 1911 Census of England & Wales, Massachusetts Passenger Lists 1820 – 1963, Cunard Records, Hyde Reporter, PRO BT 100/345, UniLiv.D92/1/8-10, UniLiv D92/2/235, UniLiv D92/2/436, UniLiv. PR13/6, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, David Fernley, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.