People on board

CAMPBELL, Eileen Hester Louisa née Knox Browne

Eileen Hester Louisa Knox Browne was born on the 5th November 1876 in Bunclody, Co Wexford to John Hervey Knox Browne and Louisa Elizabeth Knox Gore. She was the fourth of five children and the youngest daughter. Her father inherited Aughentaine Castle in Co Tyrone on the death of his father in 1882, and was High Sheriff of Tyrone in 1887. When Captain Hervey Browne, 13th Royal Lancers, married in 1867 he was A.D.C. to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Louisa was daughter of Colonel Knox Gore, of Belleek Manor, Co Mayo.

Eileen Knox Browne married George Richard Colin Campbell in Lurgan in March 1911, giving Aughentaine as her address. Colin Campbell was from a clerical and military family, and it was his father who performed the marriage ceremony. All four of his brothers served in WW1, two of them as Chaplains, and Eileen’s brother Thomas was in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers. Colin Campbell had a very successful Royal Navy career, becoming Lieutenant Commander in the Compass Branch, and designing the Campbell Barrett Aperiodic compass.

One child, Eileen Elizabeth, was born to the couple in 1914 in Dublin, and in 1918 they were living at The Poplars in Langley, close to Colin’s work in Slough. In October 1918 he had travelled to Belfast on Admiralty business and his family accompanied him, presumably to visit their family. They were returning to England on the 10th on RMS Leinster when it was torpedoed. None of the three survived the sinking, but all their bodies were recovered, with Eileen tightly clasping her daughter in her arms. All were buried in the Military Cemetery at Grangegorman, Dublin.