It is exceedingly rare to find one Titanic survivor writing to correct what another had said in a newspaper article. Violet Jessop,a stewardess on Olympic, and on Titanic’s maiden voyage, expressed her concern in a letter to the editor about several statements in Ellen Barber's story below. (Jessop would go on to complete a “maritime triple play,” serving aboard and surviving Britannic, as well.) It should be noted that portions of the original story above were the reporter’s words, rather than Ellen Barber’s.

A little gray-haired Acton woman of 73, who survived the Titanic disaster, this week broke a 46-year silence when she spoke to me about the night 1,500 people perished in mid-Atlantic. [The reporter’s name is not bylined.]

For Mrs. Ellen Barber, of 113 Wendell Rd., has never liked to talk about “that night.”

Until this week, she was one of the last of the living survivors not to have given her version of the greatest true saga of the sea in history.

Now she has spoken, simply, but movingly telling of how this horror appeared through the eyes of a then 27-year-old lady’s maid.

In 1912, Mrs. Barber was working for the rich Cavendish family in Kent. Then, as now, she made many of the dresses that people around her wore. She went wherever her lady went.

And that was how she came to be aboard the Titanic.

Mrs. Cavendish had twice taken Mrs. Barber to America with her when she was visiting relatives. It was chance that the Cavendish family managed to buy tickets for the Titanic’s maiden voyage. There was rejoicing in the home which, in a little over a fortnight’s time, would be plunged into deep mourning.

The morning of Wednesday, April 10, 1912 dawned fair over the hop fields of Kent as the family set out for Southampton.

At the quayside there was a band playing to welcome the passengers. The whole town was en fête. Flags fluttered, the crowds jostled and cheered good-naturedly to watch the ship set sail that would never return.

Life aboard the biggest luxury liner to set sail across the Atlantic was one big happy party. There were dances, there were concerts, millionaires bathed in the spring sun on the promenade deck. Everything in the world was wonderful.

Mrs. Barber takes up the story on the fateful Sunday:

“I got up at the usual time for breakfast. I had a cabin to myself below deck at the front of the ship. I should have shared it with another maid, but her mistress wanted her nearer to the promenade deck.

“It was a nice day, and after breakfast I went up on board to sit in a deck chair and get on with some needlework. Next to me sat the millionaire, Mr. [John] Jacob Astor.”

All that afternoon was spent in reading and sitting in the deck chair in the warm Atlantic breeze And Mrs. Barber takes up the story again after supper that night:

“I remember Mrs. Cavendish telling me there was a [divine] service in the lounge if I wanted to go to it. I did not go. [Editor’s note: Divine service for first-class passengers was held Sunday morning in the dining saloon.]

“At about 10:30 or 11 o’clock, I went to bed after seeing that Mrs. Cavendish did not want anything else. But she was quite happy and I went down to my cabin.

“I did not read for long in bed and soon switched the light out. I always slept well aboard ship, and this night was no exception. It took a lot to wake me in those days.”

In fact, it took an iceberg hitting the underneath of the Titanic to wake Ellen Barber, and even then, she turned over and went to sleep again.

“I just heard a bump,” she said. “It made me stir momentarily, but that was all. I thought no more about it.

“Then I heard a lot of noise in the passage outside, so I thought I’d better go and investigate. I went up to Mrs. Cavendish and she said it was nothing. I went back to bed.

“Then I heard more people shouting and running about in the passage. This time I knew there was something wrong, and I got up to go to see for myself.“

What Mrs. Barber saw she thinks was not seen by any survivor.

“The water was coming up the stairs leading down into the hold.

“I turned to a steward and pointed to the water, and said there must be something wrong. He took hold of me and shook me. To this day I don’t quite know why he did that. I suppose it was either because he was frightened or that he thought I was going crazy.

“I then went up to Mrs. Cavendish again [in cabin C-46]. I told her I wished she would get up, as I thought there really was something wrong.“

That was more than anyone else on board thought. For everyone had said the Titanic was unsinkable. Nothing could go wrong with it.

“The next thing,” Mrs. Barber continued, “was that we got our lifebelts on and the lifeboats were made ready. Mrs. Cavendish dressed, and together with Mr. Cavendish, we went up onto the boat deck.

“I had heard during the voyage that much of the Titanic was still not finished, and I saw as the chaos mounted, several things go wrong that could have saved lives. The main thing was that the watertight doors would not close. Most of these fittings were to be finished in New York or back in England. They should have been done before.”

Mrs. Barber was one of the lucky ones. Together with Mrs. Cavendish, she climbed into lifeboat number six with 28 other people. Even this lifeboat was not ready to meet such an emergency as being launched on this voyage.

“The plug in the bottom was out. This was only noticed just as it was about to be dropped into the water. If this had happened, we would all have drowned. Luckily, someone shouted at the last minute, and it was found and put in. Mrs. Cavendish, who took an oar herself, sat throughout the whole of the night with her foot over the plug so that it would not come out.”

Also in boat number six was the wife of a millionaire, Mrs. Rothschild.

The order was “Women and children first.” Mr. Cavendish, having helped the ladies into the boat, stood on the deck and waved good bye. He was never seen again. He was one of the 1,500 who drowned that night as the Titanic pivoted high into the air and plunged beneath the sea in a last snort of anger.

There was not much talked about in boat number six. “We were all too shocked to say anything,” remembers Mrs. Barber. “I even hid my eyes when they told me the ship was going down behind us. I was too scared. The only way I knew it had gone was because until the end, the sea had been lit up by its thousand and one lights.

“Suddenly everything was black. I knew that for many the end had come.

“We weren’t helped by the naval man [Robert Hichens?] in our boat saying that the nearest land was Newfoundland. And that was 120 miles [sic] away.

“Dawn had broken before we saw another ship. We were lucky that the sea was calm, because if we had been washed away and left in the Atlantic for a few days, we would all have died. There was no water or food in the boat, as there should have been.

“Finally we were picked up by the Carpathia. A good rest and we were in America. We weren’t met by any of the press as we should have been today. We were left to go sadly alone on our way.” [Editor’s note: The press mobbed the area near Pier 54; a police cordon prevented the press from approaching the survivors.]

A few weeks later Mrs. Barber returned to England. Only once more did she cross the Atlantic, and then it was on the world-beating Mauretania. Since then she has never made another sea voyage.

“It’s not that I’m frightened, “she admitted. “it’s just that I don’t fancy it anymore. Mrs. Cavendish has written to me since and said she did not think I would like New York any more now. Too much traffic.”

She has only one ambition now, this little old lady who is a part of history. “I want to return to Kent if possible. Otherwise I’m quite happy. “ – Acton Gazette and West London Post, July 11, 1958

'Titanic Disaster'

[Violet Jessop responds to Ellen Barber]

I’ve read a Titanic survivor’s memories in your issue of July 11 with very mixed feelings about what Mrs. Barber stated.

Some of it is quite untrue and some just based on hearsay. For instance, she says she heard on the voyage that much of the Titanic was still unfinished or was to be finished later. [Editor’s note: Eleanor Cassebeer and May Futrelle also said they had seen this unfinished state.]

This is a slur on the name of a great shipbuilder and a gallant gentleman, Thomas Andrews, a perfectionist.

She goes on to say that as chaos mounted she saw several things go wrong that could have saved lives. There was no chaos, because for some extraordinary reason, the ship remained on an even keel and we saw the lights of the Californian, which we expected to come to our assistance.

She claims also that the watertight doors did not close. This is not true, and I’ll wager she didn’t even know what a watertight door was until she heard somebody chattering. They were closed as the ship was ripped from underwater in six compartments, the pressure was too great and no bulkhead would withstand that force. [Editor’s note: Margaret Brown said problems developed with a watertight door on E deck, where Mrs. Barber had her cabin.]

She also gives the impression that with the exception of the steward who shook her, she was left to wander up and down to Mrs. Cavendish.

All stewards and stewardesses were on duty in their sections to assist and direct people after the first shock.

Violet C. Jessop
Ex-stewardess of RMS Titanic
– Acton Gazette and West London Post, July 25, 1958

This item first appeared in Voyage, the journal of the Titanic International Society