Empress of Ireland Passenger List

[Geoff Whitfield]

For anyone interested, The Musee de la Mer at Rimouski, Quebec, now has the passenger list for the final voyage, as compiled by Craig Stringer and myself on their Website. They also have our crew list which will appear later.

Http://www.museedelamer.qc.ca/html/empress.htm

 

[Eric Sauder]

Hey, Geoff!

I'll go have a quick look. But if it's anything like your Lusitania lists, I know it will be spectacular!

Eric

 

[Inger Sheil]

Thanks to you and Craig for your generosity in sharing your work, Geoff! It's a much needed addition to the field of EoI studies.

 

[Leonora Hernandez]

I am looking for a list of children who survived the tragedy of Empress of Ireland or a list of families with children who were traveling.

 

[Geoff Whitfield]

Children who survived the sinking of the Empress of Ireland:

Josephine Helen O'Hara - born 16 December 1903
Florence Barbour - aged 8
Grace Hanagan - aged 7
Arvo Markkula - aged14

A full passenger list can be found on the Musee de la Mer (Rimouski) Website.

Geoff.

 

[Geoff Whitfield]

The Musee address is at the top of this thread.

Geoff

 

[Lester Mitcham]

Hello Geoff,

I see a Charles Lindsay Claude Bowes-Lyon among the saved passengers. Any relation of the late Queen Mum?

 

[Geoff Whitfield]

Hello Lester,

Yes, there was a relationship of a kind - although probably so distant that they had never even met! They were a very large Scottish family.
The Bowes-Lyon luck ran out some five months later when Charles became a victim of World War One on 23rd October 1914.

Geoff

 

[Lester Mitcham]

Hello Geoff,

Thank you for that.

Lester

 

[Roy Kristiansen]

Hi, all!

I thought perhaps you'd enjoy reading this Empress-related article. Forgive me if I picked the wrong thread to post it. William Harbeck was, of course, a Titanic casualty.

Roy

****************

MOTOGRAPHY, May 1911, p. 103:

Motion Pictures Cure Seasickness

W. H. Harbeck, of Seattle, official motion picture photographer of the Canadian Pacific railway, returned yesterday from Europe, where he took several thousand feet of views for the company, to be used on its theaterette cars.

On the voyage across the Atlantic on the steamer Empress of Ireland some rough weather was encountered, and a number of the first and second cabin passengers succumbed to the motion of the vessel. To draw their minds from their troubles, Mr. Harbeck put on a set of motion pictures of Canadian Pacific scenery in the salons, and while watching the peaceful scenes in the Canadian Rockies, at Seattle and Vancouver, the ailing passengers, Mr. Harbeck declares, forgot their seasickness and when the show closed had recovered their usual composure. "I believe this is the first time a motion picture show was ever put on for a deep-sea audience," he declared, "and I cordially recommend the method as a sure cure for sea-sickness."

 

[carole thomas]

My great uncle, Leonard Palmer, and his wife were passengers on the EoI and were fatalities. Family scuttlebut says there was a newspaper article about them which detailed Leonard going down with the ship and his wife, who was in a lifeboat, jumped in and died with him when she saw the boat going down. Does anyone know of this article please? My grandmother (Leonard's sister) only died four years ago and left me some mementoes from the ship (i.e. letters sent by him to his mother) and I am trying to research more about the tragedy.

 

[Mike Poirier]

You may want to contact Geoff Whitfield who is a member of this board. His profile is a few messages above.
Mike

 

[Geoff Whitfield]

Carole,

I know a fair amount about the Palmers - found their grave a while back too! Contact me on [email protected]

 

[carole thomas]

Michael - thanks for Geoff Whitfield's name to contact.

Geoff - thanks for your message - am sending e-mail to you today to discuss further.

 

[carole thomas]

Thanks to Geoff Whtfield, who has given me so much information on the Palmers and the Empress of Ireland disaster. I don't know what I would have been able to accomplish in this research without his knowledge and generosity in sharing that knowledge. Thanks Geoff.