I saw this lifejacket has been discovered and is up for sale...
The Lusitania Life Jacket — what’s in your loft?
You may have read in the press that on Friday September 3rd Biddle and Webb Ltd is to auction an extremely rare life jacket that was recovered after the sinking of the ill fated ocean liner RMS Lusitania. It is already causing a stir, not least for the current owner’s heart!
Little did he know when he asked for an expert to value some items inherited from his father’s estate, such a significant piece of history was hiding in his loft. Yet who can blame him? If you view the images below, it’s not immediately obvious that this is, in fact, a life jacket… until you read those heart stopping letters, LUSITANIA across the front. At once your mind goes into overdrive, the picture sharpens and the object’s purpose becomes clear. Indeed, once studied a little more closely, you might almost be forgiven for comparing it to the cumbersome blue floating aids worn today by toddlers holidaying by the seaside! But that is exactly what it is, only this one is the grey, 1915 model.
Research and a little help from an expert have revealed that in fact there were three styles of lifejacket made for The Lusitania: the first style, which in modern parlance was worn like a gillet or body warmer, fastened at the front and looks like a sleeveless puffer jacket; the second was placed over the head and fastened at the sides, similar to those exemplified by airline staff the world over; the third, which is the model offered for sale, wrapped around the body with loophole straps over the shoulders and ties to secure it. So how rare is it? To date, we are led to believe there are only 4 other known examples in the world, all in private collections. This jacket is number 5. What is even more significant is that it is the only known example of this style so far. Without going into the entire history of the Lusitania, (‘google’ it if you don’t already know the story!) one cannot fail to stop and think about the circumstances in which the jacket came to be separated from the ship. Someone was wearing it, in the hope that it would help save their life. 1,962 people were on board the Lusitania when she set sail from New York on 1st May 1915 headed for Liverpool. At 2:10pm on 7th May, just off the coast of Kinsale, Southern Ireland, she was torpedoed by a German submarine U- 20, sinking in a mere 18 minutes. Only 761 people survived, and the tragedy went down in history. Of significance to this story is the fact that local fishermen and sea merchants were offered a cash reward for the bodies floating in the Irish Sea by the Cunard Line. Yet even with such incentive, only 289 bodies were recovered. The jacket offered for sale came into the possession of a man who was on the quayside as the fishermen came in, days after the tragedy. The straps have been cut, which leads us to believe that it may have been taken from a body brought ashore. It is a story we will never get to the bottom of, we can only surmise. Whatever the truth of the tale is, this is undoubtedly a tragically poignant item.Returning to the present day, I wonder how many people would have thrown this item away, blissfully unaware that it had such huge significance. Let’s be honest, without reading the word Lusitania, I think many would have picked it up with gloves and popped it straight in the dustbin! If our expert had not known to look at everything with an open mind and an experienced eye, who knows, the lifejacket might have been lost forever, much like its original host, RMS Lusitania. So perhaps a question you should be asking is this, do you know what’s in your loft? Liz Winnicott
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