I was aware that the Nurse Alice Cleaver on board the Titanic was not the convicted child murderess in England. I may be wrong in this, but I have also read that even when the error was pointed out to Don Lynch, no letter of apology was sent to the family. If true, that's not very nice.
In Judith Geller's book Titanic: Women and Children First, poor Alice Cleaver is demonized to such an extent, it could be the description of an Auschwitz wardress. What's more, the author, while quoting the chapter source as a (unnamed) "Newspaper Account", is somewhat vague about her own position on Cleaver, simply saying that "we may never know the truth" at the end.
In that book Alice Cleaver is described as a convicted child murderer who was pardoned by a "forward thinking judge" because she was depressed at the time; as someone who brought her instability of character and inexperience into the bosom of the Allison family; as a "most unattractive lady", so unattractive in fact that newspapers found it necessary to enhance her photos for publication; as someone who was very much 'enjoying' her position as the rescuer of the heir to the Allison family fortunes; and who, by her "selfish act of cowardice" was directly responsible for the deaths of Hudson, Bess and little Loraine Allison.
As Thomas Krom has pointed out, the Alice Catherine Cleaver on board the Titanic was not even the same Alice (Mary) Cleaver who was convicted of killing her child. She was Trevor's nurse and by the nature of that job, she was responsible for the baby's welfare. It is immaterial whether Bess Allison really panicked or not; Trevor and Lorraine were sleeping with their parents and in order to pick the former up, Alice would have to have gone into their stateroom. Both parents clearly would not have abandoned their children and so Alice's story about Bess being there when she went in must be true, even if rest of her story was slightly exaggerated. It follows that when Bess seemed undecided what to do, Alice Cleaver decided to take Trevor - her responsibility - and leave. The fact that this was done in Bess' presence suggests that the mother knew where baby Trevor was, although she might have been uncertain if he and Alice had made it into a lifeboat. For her part, Alice Cleaver could be excused for assuming that since Bess had seen Trevor safely leave with his nurse, the rest of the family would now be persuaded to follow suit.
I don't think Bess Allison needed to be a rocket scientist to guess that Alice Cleaver, having hurriedly grabbed Trevor and left, would be allowed into a lifeboat - they were a woman and a baby. Therefore, for whatever reason she elected to remain on board the Titanic, I personally would blame Bess Allison for the death of her 3-year old daughter Loraine and not Alice Cleaver for being responsible for the deaths of the family.
