Isabel Gertrude Hunt was born in Birkenhead, Cheshire, England, in 1877, the elder daughter of William Henry and Jane Janet Hunt (née Davies). She was educated at Miss Graham's School, Birkenhead and then trained as a nurse at a Liverpool hospital. Her father was a Doctor of Music, which he taught professionally. One of her brothers was a master at King William's College, at Castletown, on the Isle of Man. In 1915, the family home was at Devonshire Road, Claughton, Birkenhead, but by this time her father had died.
In October 1909, she had left Liverpool, accompanied by her widowed mother, on board the White Star Liner
Arabic for the United States of America and arrived at New York on 11th October. Their ultimate destination was Haverford, in Pennsylvania, where Isabel’s brother-in-law, Doctor Edward Charles Parker lived at 2141, North Howard Street. Once there, she carried on with her nursing vocation at the home of a James I. Lineaweaver, who was a broker.
She later returned to Birkenhead with her mother, but in 1912, she again went to Philadelphia.
By the spring of 1915, however, probably because of the war, she had decided to return home and consequently booked as a second cabin passenger, on what proved to be the
Lusitania’s final trans-Atlantic crossing. Having left Haverford at the end of April, she arrived at Pier 54 in New York harbour on the morning of 1st May 1915 in time for the liner’s delayed departure, which eventually began just after noon.
The delay was caused because she had to wait to embark passengers, crew and cargo from the Anchor Lines ship
Cameronia which the British Admiralty had requisitioned for war service as a troop ship at the end of April. Six days later, in the early afternoon of 7th May, the steamer was torpedoed and sunk off the southern coast of Ireland, by the German submarine
U-20 - only hours away from her Liverpool destination and home port. Isabel Hunt was killed as a result of this action. She was aged 38 years.
At first, no trace of her body was found, but eventually, it was recovered from the sea and landed at Queenstown, where it was taken to one of the temporary mortuaries set up there, given the reference number 205 and described as: -
Miss Isabella Hunt (probably) Aged 43, tall medium build, brown hair, slight cocked nose, wore button boots with cloth tops.
Property. I Metal wrist Watch with leather strap
It was also photographed to help establish its identification as the rising spring temperature in southern Ireland and its immersion in the sea meant that it was necessary to bury recovered bodies as soon as possible, for reasons of hygiene alone! Anxious relatives of those missing were then invited to identify their loved ones through these photographs.
A positive identification was eventually made of it, however, by one of the ship's stewards, at first thought to have been Second Steward Robert Chisholm. It later transpired, however, that it was Second Class Waiter George Griffiths who had performed this grisly task.
Miss Hunt’s body was eventually buried on 16th May 1915, in The Old Church Cemetery, Queenstown, in Mass Grave B, 5th Row, Upper Tier, where it remains to this day!
She is also commemorated on the family plot in Flaybrick Hill Cemetery, Birkenhead, Merseyside, in grave C.E. 7C. 199. Originally, the gravestone consisted of a Maltese cross mounted on a square base, but at some time, the cross has been broken off and is half buried in the ground. Although it is difficult to make out the inscription, the relevant part states: -
Also of
ISABEL GERTRUDE,
Aged 38.
WHO LOST HER LIFE THROUGH THE
SINKING OF THE “LUSITANIA” ON
May 7TH 1915
AND WAS INTERRED AT QUEENSTOWN.
The Hunt family seemed to have had more than its fair share of tragedy. Dr. Hunt died at the comparatively early age of 42 years in December 1894, and his younger daughter, Dora, the wife of Dr. Parker, whom Miss Hunt had visited in Haverford, had died in November 1908, aged 27 years.
The watch and strap recovered from Isabel Hunt's body was sent to her mother at the Claughton address, on 14th June 1915. She lived for fourteen years after her daughter's death and died in Bromley, Kent, - her place of birth - on May 20th 1929, aged 74 years. The family home, in Euston Grove, was destroyed by enemy action on 12th March 1941, during the German blitz on Birkenhead, in the Second World War.
Cunard records and contemporary newspaper reports show Miss Hunt's first forename to have been
Isabella, and her age to have been 36 years, and immigration records from the Ellis Island reception centre in New York state that she was aged 30 years. In light of the gravestone inscription, and her birth certificate, these are obviously wrong.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, 1881 Census of England & Wales, 1891 Census of England & Wales, 1901 Census of England & Wales, 1910 U.S. Federal Census, 1911 Census of England & Wales, New York Passenger Lists 1820 - 1957, Pennsylvania Passenger Lists 1800 – 1962, Cunard Records, Island at War, Birkenhead News (Photo 15/05/1915, Col. 4), Philadelphia Public Ledger, Wirral Borough Council Burial Records, PRO BT 100/345, UniLiv.D92/1/8-11, UniLiv D92/2/386, UniLiv. P13/6, Graham Maddocks, Steve Tittley, Simon Petrie, Peter Threlfall, Lawrence Evans, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.