Archibald ‘Archie’ Douglas Donald was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on the 6th June 1889, the son of John Quin and Helen Donald (née Middlemas).
On the 24th September 1911, he arrived in Quebec, Canada, on board the Grampian, having sailed from Glasgow. He continued onto Massachusetts in the United States of America, where he studied at the university at Cambridge. He then took up a position with The Truscon Steel Company of Boston, Massachusetts.
After the outbreak of the Great War, however; he decided to travel to Great Britain to enlist in the British Army and subsequently obtained a place as an officer cadet in Edinburgh University Officer Training Corps.
So that he could take up this position, he reserved a cabin on the May sailing of the
Lusitania from New York to Liverpool. Having booked second cabin passage from Cambridge, he left there some time in April and boarded the vessel at her berth at Pier 54 in New York on the morning of 1st May 1915, in time for her scheduled 10.00 a.m. sailing. He shared his cabin on board with a friend from his student days, John Wilson, who was also travelling from Cambridge, fellow Englishman George Bilbrough who was travelling from Smith Falls, Ontario, Canada, and Irishman Doctor Ralph Mecredy.
The Lusitania’s departure from the port was actually delayed until 12.25 p.m., as she had to load cargo and embark passengers and crew from Anchor Liner the S.S.
Cameronia, which had been requisitioned by the British Admiralty for service as a troop ship.
Archie Donald found his cabin extremely cramped and stuffy with four people in it and decided that he would spend most of the journey across the Atlantic Ocean playing bridge and enlisted the support of his cabin mates in this. Another constant bridge companion was clergyman, The Reverend Herbert Gwyer, who was on his way to take up a post as senior curate at St. Mary’s Church at Mirfield, near Bradford in Yorkshire, with his new bride of three weeks, Margaret.
Having played bridge all the way across the Atlantic, Archie Donald was finishing his lunch in the second cabin dining room in the company of The Gwyers and Gloucestershire born Miss Lorna Pavey, on the afternoon of 7th May 1915, when the liner was struck by a single torpedo. This had been fired by the German submarine U-20 under the command of Kapitänleutnant Walter Schwieger, who had spotted the
Lusitania twelve miles off the coast of southern Ireland and only about 250 miles away from the safety of her home port.
Donald did not hear the explosion, only the sound of shattering glass, as if someone had fallen through a greenhouse, and immediately The Reverend Gwyer suggested that the two of them should try to calm everyone in the dining room. They both moved quickly to the dining room door and shouted to everyone that they should not rush and that everything would be fine. As this seemed to have the desired effect, Donald then helped a passenger carry The Reverend Gwyer’s wife - who had fainted - up the already sloping stairs and up onto ‘C’ Deck.
Once on deck, he realised that the liner had not got long to go before she sank and looked round for something to keep him afloat in the water. Finding an empty beer crate, which he thought would fulfil his need, he then came across Dublin Doctor Ralph Mecredy, whom he had met on the crossing, wearing a lifebelt and carrying another. Advising Donald that lifebelts were to be found in the cabins, Donald went below, despite the danger, and eventually found one in his own cabin - the only one left.
Then, ascending to the deck again on the port side, with great difficulty, because of the heavy list to starboard, he came across the bizarre sight of second cabin passenger Norman Stones from Vancouver, stripping his wife Hilda virtually naked, - to aid her swimming possibility in the sea - and then putting a lifebelt on her. Archie Donald then helped Stones to rip off the canvas cover of one of the collapsible lifeboats, before realising that the port side of the vessel was very high out of the water. This view was fortified when he saw a lifeboat launched from that side and heard it scrape and smack its way down the rivets on the ship’s side and into the sea.
He then crossed over to the starboard side and helped fend off a bunch of engine room crew who were trying to get into a lifeboat with twenty women in it, whilst there were still other women passengers left out. He then watched in horror as the lifeboat, badly launched, dropped down by its forward falls leaving the stern ones jammed. All of the occupants were consequently spilled into the water to almost certain death. This was almost certainly Lifeboat No.17, although this lifeboat was known to have had more than twenty women in it when it was lowered.
Realising that the ship’s foundering was now imminent; Archie Donald got help from a steward to tie on his lifebelt, and jumped into the sea which was only about ten feet below him. Having surfaced, he began to swim as far away from the sinking vessel as he could and as he looked behind him, he saw the giant propellers and rudder towering out of the sea, as the
Lusitania began her death slide. When this happened, Donald was narrowly missed by one of the masts and the stay ropes and first of all launched out of the water and then sucked down into the vortex, as the liner plunged to the sea bottom.
When he surfaced, he found himself between two large planks of wood which he used to support himself. Eventually, he saw a group of collapsible boats and swam towards one of them. He was hauled into it and was amazed to find that one of its occupants was none other than his cabin mate George Bilbrough. The two of them were then able to raise the canvas side of the boat to make it more seaworthy. They then picked up as many passengers as they could safely hold as the bow of the boat was badly damaged and amongst the 34 rescued from the sea were Athenian Angela Pappadopoulo, Olive North, travelling from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and Thirza Winter from Sheffield, Yorkshire.
Eventually, the occupants of the lifeboat were rescued by the Royal Naval Trawler H.M.S.
Brock and landed at Queenstown. The following day, Archie Donald, George Bilbrough and John Wilson scoured the hotels and private houses and no doubt the mortuaries, looking for people they had met on the crossing. Amongst the dead whose bodies were never recovered and identified, however, was Hilda Stones, who was killed despite the efforts of her husband Norman. Norman Stones however, survived as did Dr. Mecredy, Lorna Pavey and the Gwyers. Margaret Gwyer did achieve dubious notoriety; however, as she was sucked into one of the liner’s funnels as she sank and was then blown out again as the sea water reached her boilers.
Archie Donald eventually made it to Edinburgh, and to 25, Findhorn Place, which was the address of his maternal grandparents, and after training within the city, was commissioned into The Royal Engineers. He first embarked for France in June 1916, as a lieutenant and then served on the Western Front for the rest of the Great War, which he survived, with the exception of going on a two month visit in October 1917 to his mother, who by this time was residing in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
In 1919, Archie returned to the United States of America and settled in Boston, Massachusetts, where he worked as a civil engineer. In 1921, He married Margaret Ruth Gilmore in Springfield, Massachusetts. She was the former Margaret Burdine, a divorcee, with a nine-year-old son, named Thomas. The family moved to Houston, Texas, when Archie became the president of a stone company. By this time, his mother, Helen, was residing with the family.
The family later moved to Springer, in Colfax County, New Mexico, and Pasadena, California.
Archie Donald died on the 17th May 1959, in Los Angeles, California, aged 69 years.
Massachusetts Marriage Index 1901 – 1955, California Death Index 1940 – 1997, 1891 Census of Scotland, 1920 U.S. Federal Census, 1930 U.S. Federal Census, 1940 U.S. Federal Census, Canadian Passenger Lists 1865 – 1935, New York Passenger Lists 1820 – 1957, Texas Passenger Lists 1893 – 1963, Cunard Records, Joe Devereux, IWM GB62, Last Voyage of the Lusitania, PRO MIC, British Army WW1 Medal Rolls Index Cards 1914 – 1920, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.