Sarah Jane Webb was born in Manchester, Lancashire, England, on the 3rd October 1885, the daughter of James and Elizabeth Webb (née Kerr). Her father was a tobacco pipe maker. It is thought that Sarah was the youngest of at least four children in the family. On completing her education, she became an engraver’s painter.
On the 13th July 1908, she married John William Jackson, a widower known as William, in Manchester, and in early 1915, they had been living at 65. Moreland Street, Somerville, Massachusetts., Massachusetts, in the United States of America. Her husband was a blacksmith.
At the end of April 1915, they left Somerville and in company with her mother, Mrs. Elizabeth Webb, they arrived in New York harbour on the morning of 1st May and boarded the Lusitania as third class passengers, to make the journey back to England. For some reason, William and Sarah Jackson’s names were recorded on the passenger manifest as Webb!
Six days out of New York, on the afternoon of 7th May, the liner was torpedoed and sunk, only twelve miles off the southern Irish coast and only hours away from her Liverpool destination.
As a result of the sinking, the entire party was killed and as none of their bodies was ever recovered and identified afterwards, none has a known grave. Sarah Jackson was aged 29 years.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, Manchester England Church of England Births and Baptisms 1813 – 1915, Manchester England Church of England Marriages and Banns 1754 – 1930, 1891 Census of England & Wales, 1901 Census of England & Wales, Cunard Records, PRO BT 100/345, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Nyle Monday, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.