Eleanor ‘Nellie’ Dodwell was born in Liverpool, Lancashire, England, in 1887, the daughter of Henry and Mary Dodwell (née King). Her father was an electrical engineer and Eleanor was the middle child of three children, all girls, in the family. In 1915, the family home was at 16, Brook Road, Bootle, Liverpool.
While still a child, or a very young teenager, Nellie began an apprenticeship as a tailoress, and as she grew older found employment manufacturing ship’s linen. Perhaps because of this, she eventually joined the British Mercantile Marine as a stewardess on trans-Atlantic passenger liners. She was unmarried.
She signed on as a stewardess in the Stewards' Department on board the Lusitania at Liverpool on the 16th April 1915 at a monthly rate of pay of £4-0s.-0d. and reported for duty on the morning of the 17th April, just before the liner sailed on her last voyage across the Atlantic Ocean to new York City.
When the Lusitania left New York on the 1st May, there were 19 stewardesses serving on board. When the ship was sunk on the 7th May, thirteen were killed and only six survived. Stewardess Dodwell was one of those killed. She was aged 27 years.
Her body was never recovered and identified afterwards and as a consequence, she is commemorated on the Mercantile Marine Memorial at Tower Hill, London.
The Liverpool and London War Risks Insurance Association Limited granted a yearly pension to her mother to compensate her for the loss of her daughter on whom she was obviously somewhat financially dependent upon. This amounted to £14-13s.-9d. (£14.68½p.) which was payable at the rate of £1-4s.-6d. (£1.22½p.) per month.
A service of remembrance was held for her in the church where she worshipped, the Parish Church of St. Andrew, Litherland, on Stanley Road/St. Andrew’s Road, not far from where she lived, on the 16th May 1915. She is also commemorated there on a wooden plaque, and also on the municipal war memorial in Stanley Road, Bootle. Her name is not on one of the bronze panels of the main memorial, but incised on a semi-circular wall around it, which suggests that it was a late addition.
Another of the Lusitania’s stewardesses, Elizabeth Dewhurst, also lived in Brook Street, Bootle, at No. 13. She, however, survived the sinking.
Register of Births, Marriages, and Deaths, 1891 Census of England, 1901 Census of England, 1911 Census of England, Liverpool England Crew Lists 1861 – 1919, U.S. Border Crossings from Canada to U.S 1895 – 1956, Cunard Records, Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Liverpool Echo, PRO BT 100/345, PRO BT 334, UniLiv. PR 13/24, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham
Maddocks, George Donnison, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.
Revised & Updated –27th February 2023.