Minnie “Inez” Corbett was born in Sheffield, Yorkshire, England, in 1869, the daughter of George and Elizabeth Corbett (née Burgoyne). She was the eldest of four known children and her father was a steam engine fitter.
Her mother was a feminist authoress, her most famous work being New Amazonia: A Foretaste of the Future, a feminist utopian novel, published in 1889. She worked for many years as a journalist for the Newcastle Daily Chronicle. Many of her novels originated as magazine serials.
When Minnie completed her schooling, she became a professional singer, performing under the stage name of Madame Agatha Rose! It is likely that she worked in the music halls of the day, and where she met an actor named Cecil Charles Hood. The couple were married in London in the summer of 1892.
Nothing is known of her married life; however, Minnie either divorced or deserted her husband because she turned up in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada, sometime later married to Patrick “Pat” George Wilson, who was originally from Inverness, Scotland, and who had served for ten years with the British South African Police, which was the police force in Rhodesia.
The couple lived across the road from Prince Arthur School, at 616. Athabasca Street East, Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada. They had one child - a son named Peter John, born in 1910 or 1911. Patrick Wilson was assistant manager of The Moose Hotel, of South Hill, in the town.
Mrs Wilson was passionately involved with amateur dramatics in Moose Jaw, being a member of the Green Room Club and not only appeared on the stage for the first time in April 1915, at the City Auditorium in a production called Are You a Mason?, but also wrote two plays herself. Both of these were under consideration by the Green Room Club. She was also a singing teacher.
Some time after the outbreak of war, Patrick Wilson volunteered for service with the 60th Rifles of the Canadian Army and left with the Canadian Expeditionary Force for training in England. Whilst he was stationed at Shorncliffe Camp in Wiltshire, his wife decided to travel to visit him.
Having left their son on a farm with friends at nearby Tugaske, she left Moose Jaw on 26th April to travel to New York to join the Lusitania as a second cabin passenger. As her train was steaming out of the station she shouted to a large number of friends who had come to see her off: -
Look out for me next September, for I’m coming back in the fall.
Mrs. Wilson was on board the vessel as she left New York just after mid-day on 1st May 1915 for her delayed departure from the port. The delay was caused because she had to embark passengers and crew and load cargo from the Anchor Liner Cameronia which the British Admiralty had requisitioned as a troop ship at the end of April.
Six days later, the liner was sunk by the German submarine U-20, off the coast of southern Ireland and only hours away from the safety of her Liverpool destination. Although naturally distressed by her experiences, she nevertheless managed to survive to be landed at Queenstown where she gave her account of the sinking to several representatives of the press.
From Queenstown, she continued on her journey to join her husband at 67. Cheriton High Street, Cheriton, near Shorncliffe. This harrowing ordeal was later described in The Brighton Gazette of 12th May 1915: -
One lifeboat was almost dragged down by the ship. We could have touched her with our hands and one man pushed our boat away with his oar against the ship's side. The sound and terror of the explosions was awful. A horrible crash and thundering roar as if the whole world was being blown up. We helped in rescuing the people swimming and floating about, though there were over 80 in one boat alone and she was full of water.
When I was going into the first boat I picked up a little baby boy. A man with another child in his arms was trying to get into that boat too, before we left the ship. He was nearly frantic. "My God," he cried "I want to save my darling little baby but they won't let me in the boat.". I said "Give me the baby," but he would not give it to me. I didn't see that man again.
After the scenes of yesterday and last night, I am afraid to sleep. I was hurt too, bruised and buffeted all over. The dead ghastly faces floating all round with the staring horror-stricken look in their sightless eyes, the frothing lips, the awful terror in those dead faces, livid and grey in that terrible desolate scene about the 'Lusitania' will never leave my memory.
One poor man I helped to take on the boat, I held in my lap and he died from his injuries while I was holding him in my arms.
Another account published in her home town newspaper The Moose Jaw Evening Times on 7th June 1915 gave another version of Mrs. Wilson’s account of the sinking: -
I was sitting on deck when the ship was struck and I was thrown right out of my chair. I got in the last lifeboat and we had to be cut away, for the boat was coming over right on top of us.
The second torpedo took our funnels away. There was no third torpedo, as reported by some: the explosion was caused by the boilers bursting. One torpedo went right through the engine room. Nearly all the first class passengers were lost.
Our lifeboat went over three miles picking up people and I was hurt through constantly picking people out of the water. Dead bodies and live people were floating past and we were just continually sorting out the living from the dead.
In yet another account published in The Yorkshire Post on 11th May 1915, Mrs. Wilson said: -
It was a pitiable sight. I and a number of others were put into a boat pretty early and managed to get clear of the sinking vessel. As our boat was not full, the craft and other boats went round for about three miles picking up people, but the difficulty was to sort out the living from the dead. It was just as though we were sailing through fields of dead. A great many of the saloon passengers were lost; indeed from what we could make out, the well to do people on the ship were in proportion the greatest sufferers.
Some of Mrs. Wilson’s conclusions are not entirely accurate, which is understandable considering the ordeal she had undergone.
Cunard at Queenstown gave her a boat and rail ticket to London and travelling expenses of £0-10s-0d. (£0.50p.), and she was eventually able to use them to make her way to England and an emotional re-union with her husband. At some stage, her mother wrote to the British Reparation Commission, seeking compensation for the loss of Inez’s personal possessions, which included her professional outfits, and also for injuries she suffered during her ordeal.
In September 1915, Inez Wilson received a letter from Mr. Mostyn Prichard, whose brother, Richard Preston Prichard, had been another second cabin passenger on board the Lusitania, and of whom nothing had been heard of after the sinking. Mr. Prichard and his mother wrote to all the survivors they could trace in an effort to learn anything about his fate. Mrs. Wilson replied to his letter: -
35. Chart Rd
Folkestone W
1 – 10 - 15
Dear Mr. Prichard
Thank you so much for your very nice letter. I shall always keep it. I should have replied to it earlier, but I have been ill again, and have been too nervous to write. I think I am going to my mother’s place in Suffolk next week, for a couple of weeks or so, but, when I come back, I hope my health will be better again and, I will write, so that we can make some mutual arrangement about meeting your sisters. I feel I cannot until I come back.
I am so glad and thankful to have been any comfort to your brave little mother.
Very sincerely yours,
Minnie Wilson.
No trace of Richard Preston Prichard was ever found.
Inez Wilson’s husband survived the War, and when he was demobilised the couple returned to Canada. The British Reparation Commission forwarded Inez’s claim to the Canadian Commission for consideration, and in April 1926, they decided to award her $2,350.00 for the loss of her personal possessions and money, and a further $5,000.00 in respect of her personal injuries which consisted of two broken ribs and a permanently
damaged knee. She also lost her singing voice.
The family resided at Lillooet, British Columbia, for many years until Patrick Wilson died in 1941; however, for many years prior to his death he was known as “Peter” Wilson!
Minnie “Inez” Wilson died in Vancouver, British Columbia, on the 6th May 1948, aged 78 years.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, British Columbia Canada Death Index 1872 – 1990, 1871 Census of England & Wales, 1881 Census of England & Wales, 1901 Census of England & Wales, U.S. Border Crossings from Canada to U.S. 1895 – 1960, Cunard Records, Canadian Claims Case No. 874, IWM GB62, Brighton Gazette, Moose Jaw Evening Times, Vancouver Sun, Yorkshire Post, UniLiv.D92/1/1, UniLiv D92/2/410, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.