Alice Mercy Varley was born in Kensington, London, Middlesex, England, on the 4th October 1864, the daughter of Henry and Sarah Varley (née Pickworth). Her father was a Baptist minister, and Alice was one of eight known children in the family.
She was unmarried and at some time had emigrated to Melbourne, Australia, where her father and brother, Thomas, had gone to minister, and then, in 1897, she had travelled to the United States of America and settled in East Northfield, Massachusetts. She worked for the well-known evangelist, Dwight Lyman Moody, and became the editor of Moody’s monthly publication – Record of Christin Work, a position she held until her death.
In the spring of 1915, however, she received letters from her siblings urging her to return to England for the summer to spend time with her ‘feeble mother’. Having prepared some work for the summer issues of Record of Christian Work, she booked
second cabin passage on the Lusitania and having left Massachusetts at the end of April, she joined the liner at the Cunard berth in New York harbour in time for her last ever sailing from that port, which began just after mid-day, on1st May.
Just six days later, she was dead, killed after the liner was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-20 off the Old Head of Kinsale in southern Ireland on the afternoon of 7th May. As her body was never recovered and identified afterwards, she has no known grave. She was aged 50 years.
A grant of probate of her estate was made to her brother, Herbert Stephen Varley, who was a skins and hides agent, at London on 8th September 1915 and her effects amounted to £728-10s-4d., (£728.52p.).
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, 1871 Census of England & Wales, 1881 Census of England & Wales, 1900 U.S. Federal Census, Victoria Australia Passenger Lists 1839 – 1923, New York Passenger Lists 1820 – 1957, Cunard Records, Brattleboro Daily Reformer, Horsham Times, Record of Christian Work, Probate Records, PRO BT 100/345, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Lawrence Evans, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.