Janet Anderson, “Jessie” Murdock was born in Kinnoghead, Douglas, Lanarkshire, Scotland, on the 9th August 1878, the daughter, and eldest of eight known children of John and Janet Anderson Murdock (née Lambie). Her father was a shepherd, and the family home was at Corriemuchloch, Amutree, Dunkeld, Scotland.
In September 1911, she boarded the Caledonia in Glasgow, and emigrated to the United States of America to work as a domestic servant. She originally went to Jericho, Long Island, New York City.
By the spring of 1915, she was living in Westbury, Long Island, New York, and working for a Mrs. Ray, 18. 4th Street, Long Island, when she decided to return home to visit her family.
As a consequence, she booked second cabin passage on the Lusitania from New York to Liverpool on the morning of 1st May 1915 at the Cunard berth at Pier 54, in time for her scheduled 10 o’clock sailing. This was then delayed until 12.27 p.m., as she had to embark passengers, crew, and cargo from the recently requisitioned Anchor Liner Cameronia, which the British Admiralty had taken for use as a troop ship at the end of May.
The Lusitania was sunk, six days later, on the afternoon of 7th May, within sight of the cast of southern Ireland by the German submarine U-20, but Jessie Murdock managed to survive and having been rescued from the sea and landed at Queenstown, she was able to make it back, eventually, to Scotland.
Later that summer she successfully applied to The Lusitania Relief Fund, for financial help to cover some of the cost of her lost possessions. This fund, set up soon after the disaster, was administered by The Lord Mayor of Liverpool and some of the local business community and was intended to help second and third class passengers who had suffered financial loss as a result of the sinking. It was thought that saloon class passengers would be able to look after themselves!
The awards committee made her the relatively small grant of £5-0s-0d., in mid-August 1915, but The Cunard Steam Ship Company offered her free passage back to New York, so perhaps she had intimated that that was where she wanted to go! As a result, on 12th October 1915, she sailed for there from Liverpool, on board the liner Orduña.
Jessie Murdoch returned to Scotland in October 1922, and it is believed she never left her native land again. In 1929, her father died, and left his estate to her.
She lived in the villages of Monzie and Gilmerton, near Crieff, for the remainder of her life, and in her later years was a resident of a retirement home, named Richmond House, in Crieff. In May 1969, aged 90 years, she was interviewed by a reporter from the Strathearn Herald, to whom she recounted her experience during the sinking of the Lusitania. The report appeared in the edition of the 31st May 1969 and stated: -
… Miss Murdoch remembers that day well. “We were sitting at our lunch when the torpedo struck.” When she referred to “we”, she meant her friend and her baby. Miss Murdoch said a white-faced steward ran up and said, “We’ve been torpedoed!”
Miss Murdoch remembers calling to her friend, “We must get out of here”. Together, and with the baby, they searched for a life-boat but each one was filled with panic-stricken Passengers. Eventually they found an empty life-boat, or as Miss Murdoch put it, “The last one left on the ship”. This was their passport to safety for only a few hours later they were rescued by a boat out from the Isle of Man. There was one point in the whole business of abandoning that ship sticks clearly in her mind, and that was when, “The deck we had been standing on was going under the water when we looked back”.
Jessie Murdoch died at Richmond House on the 22nd September 1974, aged 96 years. She had never married.
1881 Census of Scotland, 1891 Census of Scotland, UK Incoming Passenger Lists 1878 – 1960, New York Passenger Lists 1820 – 1957, Cunard Records, Liverpool Record Office, Strathearn Herald, UniLivD92/11, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.