Mary Florence Higginbottom, known as 'Polly', was born in Audenshaw, Lancashire, England, in 1882, the daughter of James and Martha Ann Higginbottom (née Kirk). The family home was a farm off Stamford Road, Audenshaw. Her father was employed in an iron foundry, and was a former member of Audenshaw District Council. She was one of seven children.
After schooling, Polly Higginbottom took up a position as bookkeeper and typist to the Argenta Meat Co., in Stamford Street, Ashton, later transferring to the company’s premises in Stockport. She worked for the firm for two years before setting off for the United States of America in 1913, on board the Laconia.
Her mother had a cousin, Dr. Shepley, in Fall River, Massachusetts, and Polly left her home to stay with Dr. Shepley and his family, and to take up work for which she was qualified, over there.
In the spring of 1915, she decided to return to Audenshaw for a six week holiday and after that to take her sister Agnes back with her to Massachusetts. Consequently, she booked a return ticket as a second cabin passenger from New York to Liverpool on the
Lusitania and joined the liner at Pier 54, before she sailed out of the North River for the last time on 1st May 1915. Once on board, she was allocated room E82, which she shared with Mrs. Martha Whyatt, who also came from Cheshire, and had lived in the nearby town of Hurst.
When the Cunarder was sunk, one week later, Polly Higginbottom was killed. As her body was never found and identified later, she has no known grave, despite a search being made in the temporary mortuaries in Queenstown by her father, who travelled to the port specifically for that grisly purpose when he received the news that she was missing.
Her room-mate Martha Whyatt did survive, however, and upon her return to Hyde, gave her own personal account of the sinking to a reporter of the local newspaper,
The Stalybridge Reporter. Part of her account referred to Polly Higginbottom and stated: -
Poor Miss Polly Hegginbottom, (sic) of Audenshaw, slept in the same berth as me. I am afraid she is lost. To get to our bunk, which was No. 82, E Deck, she had to descend about three flights of stairs. It was an outside berth, with a port hole.
Miss Hegginbottom always went down to the berth after luncheon, and I had been speaking to her not many minutes before she said she would go to the berth. I never saw her again. There was a lot of luggage in the corridor, and I think the force of the explosion would block up the passage with the baggage, and she would be unable to get out. She was a very nice girl, and I quite liked her.
A list of passengers killed on the Lusitania and now held in The Public Record Office in Richmond, Surrey gives Polly Higginbottom’s age as 28 years, when she embarked on her last voyage across the Atlantic, and her profession as that of clerk, but she was actually aged 32 years.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, 1891 Census of England & Wales, 1901 Census of England & Wales, 1911 Census of England & Wales, Massachusetts Passenger Lists 1820 – 1963, Cunard Records, Boston Globe, Stalybridge Reporter, PRO 22/71, PRO BT 100/345, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, David Fernley, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.