Nancy Eileen Fenn Wickings-Smith, always known as ‘Nan’, was born on 4th September 1914, in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, the daughter of Cyril and Phyllis Bailey Wickings-Smith. Her parents originally came from England.
In May 1915, her father had decided to return to England to obtain a commission in the British Army and as a result, the family, accompanied by baby Nan’s uncle Guildford, who was a serving soldier and travelling for the same purpose as his brother, booked second cabin passage on what turned out to be the Lusitania’s final voyage. Originally Guildford’s wife and daughter had also intended to travel with the rest of the family, but
illness prevented them from taking passage on the fated Cunarder.
The party of four left Victoria at the end of April and having arrived at the Cunard berth at Pier 54 in New York on the morning of 1st May 1915, they had to wait until just after noon for her to sail, as she had to embark passengers, crew and cargo from the Anchor Liner Cameronia, which had been requisitioned by the British Admiralty for war service as a troop ship, at the end of April.
Six days later on the afternoon of 7th May, when the liner was twelve miles off the coast of southern Ireland, and only 250 miles away from her Liverpool home port, the Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-20. As she was going down, Nan’s mother was placed in one of the lifeboats and Nan was picked up by a seaman and thrown across to another sailor already in the boat. This lifeboat is believed to have been Lifeboat No. 11. It was reported at the time that she never cried during this ordeal. After the lifeboat was lowered into the sea and once the Lusitania had actually gone down, her father, who had dived off the sinking ship, was able to swim to it and clamber in. Nan’s uncle Guildford was killed, however; and no trace of his body was ever found.
After being landed at Queenstown, the family eventually got to England and made their way to ‘Clovelly’, Winchester Road, Walton, Surrey, which was the home of Nan’s grandmother.
Her mother, who never got over the trauma of the sinking, died as a result of multiple sclerosis, at the early age of 29 years, in January 1920. Her father eventually re-married, in 1936, but had no further children.
In April 1939, Nan gave birth to her first child, a daughter named Carole, who she put up for adoption. Then, on the 27th November 1946, she married a Mr. Alan W. Woods and they had three children, Jane, Richard and Anthony.
In June 1988, following an erroneous announcement in The Daily Telegraph that the last passenger survivor of the Lusitania had died, Alan Woods wrote the following letter to the newspaper, which was printed in the edition of 19th June: -
My wife, Mrs. Nancy Eileen Woods, née Wickings-Smith is a survivor of this dreadful torpedoing. At the age of nine months she was returning with her parents from Canada, so that her father could join H.M. forces. Immediately after the torpedoing a sailor picked her up and threw her to another sailor in a lifeboat and both she and her parents survived.
She has in her possession photographs of her rescue which she prizes very highly, taken by the Daily Sketch.
“ALAN W. WOODS, 11, Shooters Hill Road, Blackheath, London SE3.”
A photograph of Nan being carried by her mother in Queenstown accompanied the letter.
Nan Woods died on 25th May 1993, in Blackheath, Kent, aged 78 years. Her remains were cremated and placed in Lewisham Crematorium, which is attached to Hither Green Cemetery, where her mother, Phyllis was laid to rest in 1920.
Cunard records erroneously give her forename as ‘Phyllis’, obviously mistaking it for that of her mother.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, 1939 Register, Cunard Records, Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Daily Telegraph, National Archives of Canada, Surrey Advertiser, Paul Wickings, Mary Wickings-Smith, Jane Woods, Richard Woods, Bronwen Woods, James Maggs, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.