Audrey Lawson-Johnston
Audrey Lawson-Johnston (born February 15, 1915 in New York City as Audrey Warren Pearl , † January 11, 2011 in Melchbourne , Bedfordshire ) was the last survivor of the sinking of the British luxury liner RMS Lusitania on May 7, 1915 by a German Submarine.
Life
Audrey Lawson-Johnston was born in February 1915 in New York as the fourth child of the American medical officer Major Frederic Warren "Frank" Pearl (1869–1952) and his wife Amy Lea Duncan (1881–1964). Pearl was president of the mechanical engineering company Pearson Engineering Corporation Ltd. on Broadway and worked there with Frederick Pearson . He also worked for the US Embassy in London .
In the spring of 1915, Major Pearl was on his way back to London and booked a first class passage on the Lusitania , which left New York on May 1 and was supposed to arrive in Liverpool on May 8 . He was accompanied by his wife, five-year-old son Stuart, daughters Amy, 3, and Susan, 14 months, and three-month-old baby Audrey. In support of Mrs. Pearl, the nannies Alice Lines and Greta Lorenson went on the trip. The group lived in three adjacent luxury cabins on the E-deck.
When the ship was torpedoed on May 7th, Audrey's mother was on deck, Major Pearl was below deck with the children and the two employees. He ran upstairs and Amy met him on the stairs after a few moments. They sent the nannies to the boat deck and followed them after looking for life jackets in the suites. Alice Lines and Greta Lorenson were separated in the crowd on deck, each with two children. Audrey and Stuart were with 18-year-old Alice Lines when she jumped off the boat deck and was dragged into a lifeboat by her hair. Of the fourteen first grade children, they were the only two to survive the downfall. Major Pearl and his wife searched in vain for their children on board the fast-sinking steamer and were washed into the sea from the boat deck when a great wave rolled from the bow over the crowded deck. Major Pearl was clinging to a board, his wife holding onto the hull of a capsized lifeboat. After hours in the water, both were rescued, but the other two children and the second nanny disappeared without a trace. Their bodies were never found.
In 1916, Amy Pearl gave birth to their fifth child, a son named Vivian Whitewright Warren Pearl († 2006). Their sixth and last child was a girl named Amy Susan Pearl in memory of their two lost daughters.
On July 18, 1946, Audrey Pearl married Hugh de Beauchamp Lawson-Johnston (1914-2002), son of George Lawson-Johnston, 1st Baron Luke and his wife, Honorable Edith Laura St. John. The couple had three daughters: Primrose Pearl (* 1948), Juliet Amy (* 1952) and Marguerite Laura (* 1950). Lawson-Johnston lived in Northamptonshire , England until her death . She stayed in close contact with her lifesaver Alice Lines, who died shortly before her 101st birthday in 1997. Audrey Lawson-Johnston inaugurated an inshore lifeboat in the Welsh port town of New Quay , Cardiganshire in 2004 and named it in the name of her mother, Amy Lea Pearl . Audrey Lawson-Johnston left three daughters and ten grandchildren.
Web links
- Last known Lusitania survivor, 95, dies - report of Lawson-Johnstons's death in the online edition of BBC News
- Details on the baptism of Amy Lea Pearl
- Information and photos about Frank Pearl
- Information and photos about Amy Pearl
- 2008 interview with Lawson-Johnston
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Lawson-Johnston, Audrey |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Pearl, Audrey |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American survivor of the Lusitania sinking |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 15, 1915 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | New York City |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 11, 2011 |
| Place of death | Melchbourne , Bedfordshire |