People on board

OWEN, Hannah

Hannah Owen was born in Holyhead in 1882 to William Owen and Mary Roberts, the eldest of their seven children, one of whom died young. William was a Coal Porter employed by the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company in Holyhead. One of Hannah’s brothers worked as a Steward on the mailboats. Hannah left school at the age of fourteen and went to work in London where an aunt was living, returning home to work locally as a Domestic before moving to Mill Road Infirmary in Liverpool, where she was listed as a ‘Servant’ in the 1901 census.

Shortly afterwards she returned to Holyhead and began work as a 2nd Stewardess on the C.D.S.P.Co mailboats. In 1911 she was recorded in Kingstown on board RMS Connaught with Captain Birch and many of the same crew that she would be working with on RMS Leinster on the 10th of October 1918. There were just three Stewardesses on duty that day, Mary Coffey, Louisa Parry and Hannah Owen, along with a larger number of Stewards to cope with the demands of the many passengers.

Hannah Owen did not survive the sinking, but her body was recovered and, along with the bodies of six other members of the crew from Holyhead, was returned there on board the SS Rostrevor on the Monday. She was buried in the family grave in Maeshyfryd Cemetery. She was awarded the Mercantile Marine Medal and the British War Medal and is commemorated on a plaque in Hyfrydle Chapel and on the War Memorial in Holyhead. Her name is also listed on the memorial in York Minster to women lost in the Great War.