People on board

MORLEY, Margaret

Margaret Morley, known as Mollie, was born on the 11th of July 1897 to Michael Morley and Margaret McCarthy. The family was living in Lower Road in Cork at that time, having lived at Magazine Road and later they would be in Dillon’s Cross. In the 1901 census they were at Sunview Place, but by 1918 they had settled in Annview, Ballinlough. The family cannot be found in the 1911 census, so the number of children cannot be confirmed. In 1901 Margaret was the youngest of five with three older brothers and a sister. Five brothers and a sister attended her funeral in 1918. Michael was a ‘Caterer’, on his death certificate in 1922 a ‘Cook’. In 1891 he was employed at the Workhouse, and in 1900 at the Munster Arcade, one of Cork’s biggest department stores. On his son Timothy’s marriage certificate in 1929 Michael was described as a ‘Workers Official’.

Margaret Morley was nursing in the Sheffield Union Hospital, Firvale House in 1918 but it is not known how long she had been there, or where she did her nursing training. As well as being the Union hospital, Firvale also housed Belgian refugees from 1915, at the same time taking sick and wounded soldiers from the war. In November 1918 the hospital appealed to the local women of Sheffield to come as temporary assistants during the current influenza epidemic.

Margaret was presumably returning to Sheffield after leave at home in Cork when she travelled on RMS Leinster on the 10th of October 1918. She did not survive the sinking but her body was recovered. Her funeral took place from St Finbarr’s Church to Douglas cemetery.