Stuart Duncan Day Pearl was born in New York City in the United States of America on the 31st January 1910, the son of Frederic Warren and Amy Lea Pearl, (née Duncan). He had three sisters Amy, born in 1912, Susan, born in 1914 and Audrey born in February, 1915. In 1915, the family home was at 20. Lowndes Square, Belgravia, London, but the family also maintained a home at 375 West End Avenue, New York.
His father had been a surgeon-major in the United States Army and had served in the Spanish-America War of 1898, and as both he and Stuart’s mother wanted to be involved in helping the wounded in the war in Europe, in April 1915, they booked saloon passage on the Lusitania, to cross the Atlantic to Liverpool. Their ultimate destination was their home in London, but his father intended to travel on to the The Queen’s Hospital at La Panne, which had been set up by a distinguished Belgian surgeon, Antoine Depage to tend wounded Belgian soldiers. Accompanying the family party was a Danish nurse, Greta Lorenson, and an English one, Alice Lines.
The family boarded the liner at the Cunard berth at Pier 54 in New York on the morning of 1st May 1915 for what became her last ever departure from the port. Once on board, Stuart’s parents’ occupied suite E51, Alice Lines took Amy and Susan into room E59 with her, and Greta Lorenson took Stuart and Audrey into room E67. Rooms E59 and E67 were the personal responsibility of First Class Bedroom Steward Alf Woods who came from Liverpool. The ticket for the whole family was numbered 46071. For the voyage across the Atlantic, Stuart Pearl was jointly looked after by Miss Lines and Miss Lorenson and the nursery staff of the liner’s crew.
On the afternoon of 7th May 1915, the liner was struck by a single torpedo fired by the German submarine U-20, under the command of Kapitänleutnant Walther Schwieger. Just before she was hit, Stuart Pearl’s two nurses had taken the three
older Pearl children to lunch in the first class nursery, leaving Audrey sleeping in room E59. Having finished helping to feed them, Alice Lines returned to the cabin to feed Audrey and took Stuart with her.
Having got Stuart to lie down on one of the beds for a rest, she had just begun to feed Audrey, when the torpedo struck! Alice Lines knew exactly what had happened and gathering Audrey in her shawl and tying it around her neck, like a sling, she gripped Stuart by the hand and headed for the boat deck. On her way to the lifeboats, she met a distraught Greta Lorenson who had already given Amy Pearl to a stewardess to put in a lifeboat and still had hold of Susan.
Alice Lines managed to get Stuart into a lifeboat with the help of a crew member, but when she attempted to board herself, she was told that the boat was too full and she watched in horror as it was lowered into the sea. Without having a lifejacket and with the three months old Audrey slung around her neck, she jumped into the sea, her long hair flowing out around her. This auburn hair proved her saviour, however, as it was spotted by a male passenger in the lifeboat who grabbed hold of it and dragged her, and Audrey with her, into the boat, where they were re-united with Stuart, who thought the whole thing a marvellous adventure!
Eventually, the lifeboat was taken in tow by an Irish fishing vessel before its occupants were transferred to a Royal Naval patrol vessel and finally landed at Queenstown. There, they were eventually reunited with Major and Mrs. Pearl but also learned that Amy, Susan, and Greta Lorenson had all perished when the lifeboat they were in had capsized spilling its human cargo into the sea!
Bedroom Steward Wood, who had been in charge of Stuart Pearl’s saloon room did survive, however and eventually returned to his native Liverpool. After recovering from the sinking, Stuart accompanied his parents to England where the family spent most of the rest of their lives.
Stuart Pearl entered Eton College in September 1923, at the age of thirteen years, and spent the next six years as a distinguished student. He was in Mr. Adie’s house, for which he played the Eton form of football known as The Field Game, and was awarded his house colours in 1926. He also played cricket, and having captained the junior side in 1925, he rose to be Keeper of Middle Club, which meant that he was a very respectable player. He also became a sergeant in the School Corps and was a Member of the House Debating Society and House Library - which would have accorded him prefect status and he was Captain of the House from January 1928, until he left the college to enter Christ Church, Oxford, to read law, in July 1929. Having reached the Sixth Form, which made him one of the top 20 boys in the school, he obtained distinction in the examinations of 1928 and 1929.
Having graduated from Oxford, he subsequently, returned to America and practised Law there. He served in the United States Army in the legal department, during the Second World War, seeing active service during The Battle of the Bulge in late 1944 and early 1945. He later served in the U.S. National Guard and also worked for an American law firm in England.
On 21st July 1950, he married Miss Pauline F. Jackson in London and they had a son
and a daughter. Towards the end of his life, he lived with his wife at The Wigwam, Litchfield Park, Maricopa County, Arizona.
He died at St. Luke’s Hospital, Phoenix, Arizona, in the United States of America on 23rd March 1964, aged 54 years, and was cremated there. The cause of his death was recorded as being emphysema and heart failure. His ashes were then brought to England and later buried in the family grave in Brookwood Cemetery, Surrey. He left an estate in England of £1,761.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, New York U.S. Birth Index 1910 – 1965, Arizona U.S. Death Records 1887 – 1960, 1910 U.S. Federal Census, 1930 U.S. Federal Census, 1939 Register, New York Passenger Lists 1820 – 1957, Cunard Records, Eton College, New York Times, National Geographic Magazine, Seven Days to Disaster, Probate Records, PRO 22/71, PRO BT 100/345, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Audrey Lawson Johnston, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.