Bertha Miller was born in Stalybridge, Lancashire, England, on the 4th December 1881, the daughter of Joseph and Sarah Jane Miller (née Linney). In 1906, she married Arthur Dixon, who worked for Hirst Brothers of Oldham, who were wholesale jewellers. They had one son, Stanley, who was born in 1908, and a second child – details unknown – who died in infancy. Bertha Dixon’s sister, Mrs. Winterbottom, was licensee of The Market Hotel, Oldham.
In 1914, Arthur Dixon was sent to represent his firm in Auckland, New Zealand and following a successful time there, the family decided to return to Oldham for a five week holiday. Bertha Dixon was expecting her third child at this time. On 23rd March 1915, the family set out to return to Oldham, and mindful of the dangers of sea travel during the war, they decided to travel across the Pacific Ocean to Canada and thence by rail to New York, and consequently, having travelled from New Zealand to Australia, they boarded the Niagara at Sydney, Australia, and landed at Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, on the 10th April 1915. From there, they travelled by rail to New York. Once there, they boarded the Lusitania's as second cabin passengers on the morning of 1st May 1915, at the Cunard berth at Pier 54, in time for her scheduled 10.00 a.m. voyage.
This departure was then delayed until the afternoon 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.
The Lusitania finally left port 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 off The Old Head of Kinsale in southern Ireland and only 250 miles hours away from her Liverpool home port destination.
Mabel Dixon gave an interview which appeared in the Oldham Evening Chronicle and Oldham Standard, and she stated: -
THE ATTACK
I was on deck when the torpedo struck us, and my husband and boy were below at lunch. Some of the passengers saw the torpedo coming, at a distance of about 300 yards away, and I heard them call out ‘My God! There’s a torpedo!’ and other remarks like that. …
…The first torpedo struck the Lusitania in the forward part of the starboard side. For a moment everybody was too stunned to move. A great lot of water shot up into the air and came down on the deck, and I was drenched with it and struck by pieces of falling wreckage, as I was sitting on the deck at the door of the saloon on the port side. Immediately the vessel was struck she gave a lurch and tilted to the starboard side. After a moment everybody rushed for the boats, which had been slung out a long time before in readiness for anything. I ran to the top of the stairs and my husband and boy came to me. I said; ‘Oh, we’re mined.’ We thought at first it was a mine.
My husband got myself and Stanley, our boy, into one of the boats and told us to sit there. He did not get in himself, but stayed on the steamer deck. The boat was getting crowded, and my husband was afraid it would sink. There was nobody to let the boats down to the water and they hung there for a long time it seemed. Then it got so crowded that my husband said we had better get out, and we were trying to get out and back to the deck again when up rushed a lot of stokers, about a dozen of them. They came rushing for the boat, and they climbed in, trampling on us and on the children and everybody. My husband shouted to them ‘Now you men there are women and children here’ Women and children first!’ but they would not get out of the boat and they said ‘We’re going to save ourselves.’ We want to be saved as well as you.’
Well, we could not stay in the boat as it would certainly have been sunk, and my husband helped to pull us out, and we had simply to fight our way out. There was nobody to lower the boats properly, and somebody let go one end first without the other, and most of the people in it were thrown into the water. We got back on the deck, and my husband said he must try and get some lifebelts. He went below for some and he got one each and a spare one, four. As he was coming up the stairs again with them several of the crew rushed at him and tried to tear them from him. They were very rough men, whoever they were, I don’t know whether they were English men or what, but they were all black as if they worked in the coal. However he fought them off and got past them, and on the way to us a little boy stopped him and said, ‘will you give me one of those?’ and he put one on him and then dashed to us and fastened one round me and round Stanley, and then one round himself.
We could not get into another boat then, and we heard the captain call out from the bridge ‘everybody get out of the boats, She’s quite right she will float’. The ship had almost righted herself from the first list she had taken, but the captain had hardly got the words out of his mouth when we were struck again by another torpedo, right between the funnels, and she began to go over at once towards the starboard side. She was struck both times on that side. My husband and I and the boy were on the other side and very soon it was quite near to the water. He said to me ‘When I say jump we must all jump together. It’s our only chance’.
Then he called out ‘jump’ and we jumped into the water just as the ship was going down. He had hold of the boy when he jumped. I never saw them again.
Bertha Dixon was another passenger who believed that the Lusitania was struck by two torpedoes, but this fact has been discounted.
She continued her account: -
IN THE WATER
I went down and down in the water but then after a while I began to come up and when I got to the surface I could not get my head out of the water on account of the quantity of wreckage of all sorts which was floating on the water. I had a dreadful struggle before I could get my head free, but at last I managed to scrape the pieces of wood and so on away with my hands and I was able to get my head out, and when I did I looked around and the ship had absolutely gone. There was not a sign to be seen of her. All around were hundreds of people struggling and screaming in the water, and the boats were quite a long way off, and going away from us. We could not see anything of any submarine, in fact I never saw it, though other passengers said they did.
I was in the water for four hours. I looked around for my husband and Stanley, but I could not see them. Something hard hit me on the arm, and I grabbed at it, and I found it was the top of a packing case, and I stuck to it and never left hold of it again until I was saved. Nobody came near me for about three quarters of an hour, when an old gentleman came drifting by. He had hold of a bit of a pole in one hand, and was swimming slowly. He was so kind and helpful, as much as he could be. When he reached me he said: - “There is a raft over there, and I will try and push you along with it” – and he did too. He managed to push me along to the raft, and he called to them: - There is a lady here can you manage to take her on board, but they called back No we’re full up already. He said only take the woman you don’t need to take me. But they would not take me on and we had to let go of the raft. A few minutes afterwards the old gentleman got so exhausted that he said he would have to let go but he had been so good to me and so helpful that I believed I must do all I could for him, so I got hold of the sleeve of his coat across the piece of wood and we held on to each other that way with the wood between us, and it helped us for a long time, but every little wave bruised my arm against a pin in the wood which stuck out and it made me sore and numb that I could scarcely keep my grip. Every few minutes I got cramp, first in one hand and then the other, then in my legs or my arm. The old gentleman seemed to get very weak and he climbed sort of on to the wood and lay on his back for a while, but after another little time he seemed to go mad all of a sudden and took a sudden leap away into the water, and he said he would swim. He could swim, I knew, and he left me and swam a few yards. It was only a few yards, and then he could do no more and I heard him give a groan and he disappeared.
Then after that I was by myself for a long time, until a young man came drifting past. He had a small piece of board to support him and he got hold of my wood and tried to get on it. I said he must not, but he could stick to it. He got hold and he kept asking me if I could see anything coming. I said No several times, but after a while I could see smoke and I told him so and asked him to hold on a bit longer. Then I could see six lots of smoke coming towards us. He said he did not think he could hold on any longer. I said ‘Do try and hold on a little longer’ and he kept on and we were both rescued, but I believe he died afterwards.
RESCUE
It was the torpedo boat C25 which rescued us. The sailors were extremely kind to us. I shall never forget their kindness. They took off some of my wet clothes and rubbed me and wrapped me in flags and a blanket and a sailor’s greatcoat, they gave me hot tea. It was just after six o’clock when I was picked up. We scouted about for over half an hour, I should think, looking for others and I think they rescued 14 or 15 more … .
… We were landed at Queenstown at 20 minutes to 10 o’clock and taken to the Cunard office, and then the Queens Hotel, but they were so full that I would have had to go in a bed with three others, but there was a Major W- there – don’t mention his name after he and his wife were so kind but they would not have their names mentioned in the papers – and he said he would not hear of that, so he and his wife took us to their home, and now I believe that their kindness saved my life, for I fear I should have had pneumonia had I not been well looked after.
Although both Arthur and Stanley Dixon were killed as a result of this action Bertha Dixon survived, although her shoulder was fractured in the course of the sinking. Once she had been rescued from the sea and landed at Queenstown, she spent some time in a local hospital before she was fit enough to travel back to Oldham, where she stayed for some time at the Market Hotel.
No trace of her husband or son was ever found afterwards, and in August 1915, she was granted administration of her husband's effects.
Bertha Dixon gave birth to a son – Kenneth Raymond Dixon – on the 6th December 1915 in Oldham.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, Manchester England Non-Conformist Births & Baptisms 1758 – 1912, 1891 Census of England & Wales, 1901 Census of England & Wales, 1911 Census of England & Wales, Canadian Passenger Lists 1865 – 1935, Cunard Records, Oldham Evening Chronicle, Oldham Standard, Probate Records, D92/2/17, D92/2/21, Deaths at Sea 1871 -1968, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.