by Siân Evans
At 5.30 p.m. Captain Diggle gave the order and the Carinthia inched out of Liverpool on its maiden voyage. Onlookers and passengers cheered, brass bands played, hats were waved and an exuberant send-off was enjoyed by all. There was a salute from other craft on the Mersey, a chorus of whistles, hoots and toots, a venerable tradition for a first voyage.
Elsie returned doggedly to the festering family home, while Hilda hid in her cabin until winkled out by a new female colleague, and taken off to have supper in the crew’s dining room. Later, Hilda had a crisis of confidence. She had left behind everything familiar, and severed her links with her parents. She had no idea what the new job entailed, or whether she would be able to do it. In the envelope Elsie had given her she found a letter: her sister promised to look after their younger brothers, and there was some money, which she had saved from her small teaching salary. Lonely and exhausted, Hilda cried herself to sleep.
The following day was better. The other women on board were thrilled to discover they had a celebrity, an Olympic medal-winner, as their new workmate. Hilda was given a programme including a timetable for coaching passengers in the luxurious pool, which was designed in Roman style with marble columns, seating, a sauna and well-appointed changing rooms. There were curved staircases down from the deck above, providing a grande descente for the sporty, a witty reference to the elegant and fashionable staircase above decks in the restaurant. Hilda had a small office too, next to the pool, which offered a welcome escape from her tiny cabin. Passengers flocked to the pool with requests for personal tuition.
She was invited to dine one evening with Captain Diggle in the Adams Room, in first class. Fortunately, she had the gala dress bought for her at Bloomingdale’s in 1922, which she had smuggled out to the Adelphi prior to her escape. The seamstress insisted she must wear it, the laundrymaid pressed it for her, and the hairdresser tackled her hair. Hilda was also initiated into the mysteries of applying make-up, a novelty as she had spent most of her formative years plunging into or thrashing around in cold water. In addition, she had never tried an alcoholic drink before – like so much of her new life, her parents thought it ‘sinful’. At the captain’s table she was seated next to the ship’s senior wireless officer, Hugh McAllister, whom she had first met on her trip to New York. They were delighted to see each other again; he had known for months that Cunard intended to employ Hilda on the Carinthia, and he had signed on in the hope of meeting her once more.
The ship arrived in New York on 31 August 1925, and Hilda had five days’ shore leave. She met her old swimming pal Eppie who knew the true story behind the ‘lost Olympics’. Eppie was convinced that if Hilda had competed in Paris the previous year, the American team would not have swept the board of medals as they had.
A newly confident Hilda wrote a proposed job description for herself, as requested, and sent it to Sir Percy. She wanted to be more involved with the passengers beyond the confines of the pool, by organising deck games and devising on-board competitions to entertain them. Sir Percy agreed, gave her a new title – Cruise Hostess – and raised her salary substantially. In future she was to travel in a second-class stateroom – a vastly superior billet – and she was also provided with a set of formal uniforms, to match the male officers’ ‘whites’.
For the next four years Hilda worked as a Cruise Hostess on board Cunard’s new fleet of luxury liners, accompanying exclusive world cruises organised by American travel agents Raymond-Whitcomb. The itinerary varied, but the wealthy clientele were mostly Americans, industrialists and financiers, theatre stars and millionaires, and they would be travelling for months. Because of the strictures of Prohibition, the bars on board had to wait until the Carinthia left US territorial waters before they could open and there ensued an all-night party.
Hilda’s prime role as hostess was to entertain the passengers, to get to know them and find ways to keep them amused, for which she had to be adaptable and resourceful. There were formal evening dances, with music provided by the band, but Hilda and the gym staff also devised daytime pursuits, deck games or board games. She learned card games and developed a number of casino tricks, such as impressive card shuffles. She had bought a book of crossword puzzles in New York and had copies printed up by the on-board newspaper office. She created treasure hunts, and staged crimes that had to be detected by the passengers. She also led the swimming activities, coaching individuals, and organising water polo or water volleyball. The pool became a centre of fun and jollity. Hugh McAllister was very attentive, taking her round the wireless office and the bridge, and inviting her to the officers’ mess, which was unusual for any female crew member. She hosted an out-of-hours pool party for officers, by way of return, and unsuccessfully attempted to teach Hugh to swim.
By signing on for all available work as a cruise hostess, Hilda managed to avoid seeing her parents for a year, making a good living crossing the Atlantic and touring the world, her salary augmented by generous tips from her passengers. Her loyal siblings Elsie, Jack and Walter managed to negotiate a partial reconciliation with her parents, so, weeks later, Hilda turned up at the family home dressed in a leather coat and astride a brand-new motorcycle. Her parents were appalled, but Hilda didn’t care, and took her siblings out riding pillion. The motorbike brought her even more independence, as she could travel quickly around Liverpool whenever she was back in port. In 1926 Hilda received a ‘very strongly worded letter’ from Nancy Astor MP, who had been visiting the city and was walking along the promenade at Parkgate when Hilda thundered past. Lady Astor wrote to Hilda criticising such unladylike behaviour from a supposed role model for the younger generation. Hilda took no notice, and, tellingly, Nancy Astor – a speed enthusiast – acquired and learned to ride her own motorbike during the Second World War, when she was nearly sixty.
Hilda’s life was transformed by her new status and her confidence. Whenever she performed on land she was always billed as ‘the Cunard World Champion Swimmer Hilda James’. She completed a number of world cruises, survived hurricanes off the coast of Bermuda, and visited Hollywood, Hawaii, Cairo, Australia and the Baltic. Daringly, she would smoke the occasional cigarette, and have a beer or two while dealing the cards in the officers’ mess. On board the orchestra played the latest dance tunes, and Hilda could Charleston.
By now Hilda and Hugh were definitely a couple. Hugh was no Johnny Weissmuller; he was a poor dancer, and he had no talent for swimming. But sitting together on a trip ashore, he held her hand for the first time after six years of friendship. In 1929 Hugh proposed marriage, a development that surprised none of their acquaintances, and a celebratory engagement party was held on board the Carinthia in New York. Sir Percy accepted Hilda’s resignation when their ship returned to Liverpool. She was now to become a professional swimming instructress in Liverpool, and her sailing days were over, though Hugh continued going to sea as a wireless officer for Cunard. They married in September 1930, despite sullen resistance from Hilda’s parents, and their son Donald was born the following May.
Hilda James travelled the world first as a passenger, invited to America to compete as a talented sportswoman, and later as a seafaring professional. Working in international travel in the 1920s allowed her to see how different life could be, and provided opportunities to transcend her modest beginnings. She was helped by the generosity and goodwill of her many friends, and gained the confidence that might have eluded her if she had stayed at home, cowed by her parents. Like many women from less well-off backgrounds, sailing the Atlantic as a career transformed her life.
For many of Hilda’s female contemporaries, the great ocean liners offered career opportunities unimaginable before the Great War. Administrative roles, such as stenography, were first opened to women as a direct result of the wartime shortage of male labour; now it was possible to gain employment as a typist in the purser’s office, or to travel as a private secretary to a wealthy international passenger. Hairdressers such as Ann Runcie could change their professional names
to something more aspirational, leave their children to be looked after by family members and sail away for months at a time to satisfy their wanderlust, augment the family income and raise their social aspirations by filling well-paid positions on Cunard liners. The seasoned stewardess, the ‘unsinkable’ Violet Jessop, was recruited to take to the seas again, her hard-won experience deemed invaluable in meeting the increasing demand from female passengers.
On the North Atlantic run, their clients were predominantly the women of the upper decks, the privileged and fashionable, such as Lady Mountbatten; the creative, such as Elinor Glyn. There were celebrities and performers, such as Lady Diana Cooper, who flitted across the ocean balancing her career commitments with those of her family. There were international figures intent on improving Anglo-American relations, such as Lady Astor, who were travelling at their own agency, in pursuit of their own goals, even if they did occasionally have their respective husbands ‘in tow’. After four long years of war, women of means were demonstrating an independence of action and movement, and as the golden age of transatlantic travel dawned, they required unprecedented levels of services from the on-board female workforce.
5
Edith and Her Contemporaries
Edith Sowerbutts surveyed her reflection critically in the full-length looking glass. She had planned to buy the correct uniform from the Nurses’ Outfitting Shop in Victoria Street, London, but they did not yet stock what she required, as her job had only recently been created. Resourceful Edith had therefore invested in a lady’s greatcoat, standard issue for Canadian-Pacific’s stewardesses, and had found a suitably smart navy blue frock-coat with scarlet piping in an Oxford Street department store. The addition of some brass buttons had given her improvised uniform a more maritime look, an impression augmented by a neat navy blue hat. Her pin-on metal badge read ‘Conductress’ in gold letters, and she was pleased with her new persona.
It was the summer of 1925 and bespectacled, freckled Edith, aged twenty-nine, full of energy and possessed of a hearty appetite, had been recruited by Red Star Line to be a conductress on their ships travelling between Antwerp and Canada. Her role was to look after the welfare of unaccompanied women and children emigrating to Canada, especially those deemed vulnerable to possible exploitation.
While the United States restricted the influx of immigrants in the 1920s, Canada actively recruited Europeans, promising them ample employment opportunities. The country needed domestic servants, cooks, waitresses, teachers and nurses, and financial assistance was available for suitable applicants. To meet the demand, in 1924 Cunard put two of their passenger ships, the Caronia and Carmania, on the run from Liverpool to Canada, via Belfast, while Red Star Line ran regular ships from Antwerp to Halifax and New York, catering primarily for continental émigrés.
Single women contemplating travelling to Canada were reassured that, for the first time, there would be professional female chaperones on board. There had been considerable international concern about the ‘white slave trade’, the trafficking of women and children. On arrival in a vast city where they did not speak the language, solo female passengers could be easy prey for the unscrupulous, and tales abounded of undocumented and unaccompanied victims being lured or coerced into the sex industry. The Canadian government insisted that immigrants heading to their shores should be accompanied by professional, competent welfare officers, called ‘conductresses’. Each passenger’s biographical details and their emigration plans would be recorded while they were on board the ship, and after being handed over safely to the proper authorities on arrival in Nova Scotia their onward journey and eventual settlement would be monitored.
The creation of the new role of conductress provided British seafaring women with their first increase in status, to the rank of officers. Conductresses were competent, authoritative women, who commanded respect within the ship’s company while chaperoning their charges. Unlike stewardesses, who provided practical care for the physical comfort of their allocated passengers while afloat, conductresses were primarily responsible for their passengers’ moral welfare. Conductresses escorted, advised and protected the women and children on board, especially (though not exclusively) those in third class, who were crossing the globe, travelling to an unknown future in a country where they did not yet speak the language.
Edith Sowerbutts was one of a small but influential group of women who travelled the North Atlantic as conductresses. She started working for Red Star Line, which was owned by White Star, in 1925, and continued in that role for six years, when assisted immigration to Canada ceased and she was made redundant, although that was not the end of her maritime career. Edith was well-travelled, experienced and adventurous. In 1919 she and her friend Trix Bickerton, a former suffragette, had worked their three-month passage as stewardesses on the Canberra, a troopship returning exuberant demobbed Australian soldiers to Sydney. The experience was enlightening; on arrival Edith and Trix were described as ‘A couple of bonzer Sheilas, but no bloody good to me as stewardesses’ by the chief steward. Attracted to the vibrant life in Sydney, Edith stayed in Australia for several years. She had trained as a stenographer, and although she always disliked typing, it was a marketable skill that brought her plenty of work. She bought her first typewriter, a second-hand Underwood, for £20, and in her spare time she wrote articles for the Sydney Morning Herald. She recalled:
I have often pondered the question: was the typewriter women’s road to equality? I think maybe it was one of the first steps. Myself, I could see very little attractive in employment where one typed away from morn to eve, but it has been and can still be a means to an end. I escaped from the typing pool soon after war was declared in 1914. I found work with more scope, less typing, even less shorthand.1
Edith returned to Britain by sailing the Pacific and crossing Canada by train. She was employed by the Society for the Overseas Settlement of British Women (SOSBW) to promote overseas migration, and ran the organisation’s stand at the 1924 British Empire Exhibition in Wembley, during one of the chilliest and wettest summers on record, a factor that may have helped recruitment. She had a great deal of practical experience of intercontinental travel, as well as fellow feeling for people who were prepared to travel to better their lives. Edith was also a natural champion of those who were discriminated against on the grounds of race, class or gender. Her innate sense of justice made her a formidable advocate on behalf of the passengers in her care, and she was delighted to be taken on as a conductress by Red Star Line in 1925.
The westbound route of Edith’s first ship, the Zeeland, was from Antwerp, via Southampton to Halifax in Canada, and then to New York. The majority of people carried in third class were would-be emigrants from all over Europe, planning to settle in the New World. Edith received £12 a month; by comparison, an assistant purser on a small liner would get £15 a month, while a ship’s doctor would have a basic salary of £30–£40 a month, and charge additional fees for any services. Male officers had an entertainment allowance on top of their salaries, so that they could ‘treat’ passengers to drinks at the bar, but this was not given to conductresses. Edith was often short of money as she was fond of the high life once ashore.
Conductresses were expected to ‘head’ a dining table every evening in the first-class dining room, acting as hostesses for any unaccompanied women. On her first voyage out on the Zeeland Edith hosted a table of ten elderly American ladies, who seemed to find her presence reassuring. Edith was told by the purser that she would be expected to change for dinner, ‘as you would at home’, which amused her, as her family was quite ordinary and did not change for their evening meal, a simple supper. She owned a neat little black dress for evening wear, and a couple of white piqué sleeveless tennis dresses for her off-duty hours on the sports deck in the summer months.
While Edith was available to unaccompanied women in all classes, her primary role was looking after the interests of those in third class, and processing their immigration applicatio
ns. She would introduce herself to each one, explaining that she had a list of official questions, and record the answers by hand, then type up the details later. On each voyage Edith compiled detailed lists of all unaccompanied women immigrants across all three classes for the Canadian authorities. To extract this information from each woman was often a race against time, because third-class passengers were housed in the least stable section of the ship, and therefore prone to seasickness. If possible, she completed her interviews before they passed the west coast of Ireland, after which the open Atlantic was rougher. Edith relied on the services of interpreters, and was particularly fond of a remarkable character called Terps, an Orthodox Jew who spoke fourteen languages. He spent most of his free time in the kosher kitchen with his friend the chef. Edith used to join them there for fish and chips, as she thought it was the best food available on the ship.
Edith had a great deal of sympathy for her passengers, and believed that, whatever their previous experiences, they were heading for a better life in Canada or America. The unaccompanied women in third class were typically Poles, Ukrainians, Yugoslavs, Greeks, Italians, Romanians or Germans. Many of the central Europeans were from poor rural backgrounds, and they had already made a mighty journey, usually by train, across Europe to get to Antwerp to join the ship: ‘They wore long, voluminous skirts or dresses, grubby but oft-times hand-embroidered; short sheepskin jackets, head scarves and high boots. Their hand-worked blouses were made of a coarse fabric resembling calico. They wore their hair in plaits. I had never seen their like before … these people had known nothing but a very hard life – mud floors, no mod cons.’2
The voyages made by individual women to the New World often required great stamina and determination, and those making the journey were not always young and fit. In 1926 White Star Magazine carried a brief article about a nonagenarian who had made an epic journey:
