Hannah “Amy” MacGregor was born in Gorton, Lancashire, England, on the 20th July 1878, the daughter of Samuel and Betsy MacGregor (née Kendrick). Her father was an insurance agent, and Amy was the third eldest of six children. The name given to her at birth, and when she was baptised, was Hannah, and it is not known when her name changed to Amy!
In 1895, the family moved to Jersey, Channel Islands, and by 1901 were residing at 2. St. Saviour’s Hall, St. Saviour, Jersey.
On the 2nd June 1901, she married Frank Parlett, who was a dentist, and their daughter, Enid, was born in 1902. The family established their home at Norman House, Fauvic, Jersey.
In August 1908, her mother had immigrated to New York City, in the United States of America, to live with her youngest brother, Arthur, who worked as a foreign exchange broker. In August 1909, Amy and her daughter travelled on board the Carmania to visit them, staying for six weeks, before returning home.
From 1910 until 1914, her mother and brother, Arthur, made annual visits to Jersey to visit them, and then, in April 1915, Amy Parlett and her daughter travelled to New York City to visit them on a four week holiday.
For the first leg of their journey home to Jersey, mother and daughter had booked second cabin passage on the May sailing of the Lusitania, and they were going to be accompanied on their journey by her mother and brother, Arthur, making their annual visit to Jersey.
All four accordingly boarded the ship at her berth, at Pier 54 in New York harbour, on the morning of 1st May 1915, in time for her scheduled 10.00 a.m. departure. This was then postponed until the early afternoon whilst the liner loaded cargo passengers and crew from Anchor Liner the S.S. Cameronia, which the British Admiralty had requisitioned as a troop ship at the end of April.
Six days later, all four were killed when the liner was sunk off The Old Head of Kinsale, in southern Ireland by the German submarine U-20 - only about fourteen hours sailing time away from her Liverpool destination and home port.
As none of their bodies was ever recovered from the sea and identified afterwards, they have no known graves. Amy Parlett was aged 36 years at the time of her death.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, Manchester England Non-Conformist Births and Baptisms 1758 – 1912, Jersey Church of England Marriages 1754 – 1940, 1881 Census of England & Wales, 1891 Census of England & Wales, 1901 Channel Islands Census, 1911 Channel Islands Census, New York Passenger Lists 1820 – 1957, UK Incoming Passenger Lists 1878 – 1960, Cunard Records, PRO BT 100/345, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim
Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.