This is the intriguing story of a Mrs Annie Coughlan, who survived the Titanic disaster, and eventually came to live in Bideford, together with her sister, Phoebe.
She was the daughter of Alfred William Woodland (1838- 1899) and Sarah Saunders (1842- ?). The couple were married in Netherbury, Dorset in 1860, where Alfred worked as a butcher. They later moved to Guernsey, where he worked part-time as a butcher, but also ran his own pub, the Half Moon, in Les Caches Road, St. Martins.
Annie Woodland was born on Guernsey on 17 November 1872, and had two older brothers, and an older sister, and two younger brothers and a younger sister. She married a soldier, called William
Henry Martin, in Ireland in 1893. The marriage didn’t last, but she never divorced, and by 1912 was calling herself Mrs Coughlan, having presumably entered into a common-law relationship with a Mr Coughlan but unable to get divorced.. She gave her surname as Martin when registering for work, but is also described as the widow of William Martin on her death certificate. Her legal husband died on 19 October 1918 in Wallasey, Cheshire of pneumonia and heart failure.
In the meantime, she had gained employment with the White Star Line as a stewardess on the Olympic, a sister ship of the Titanic. The Olympic was, in fact, the same size as the Titanic, but the latter had greater tonnage because of its heavier interior fitments. Whilst employed in this capacity, she was believed to be on board, when it collided with HMS Hawke in the Solent in 1911. The Olympic, unlike the Titanic, and its other sister ship, the Britannic, survived to serve a full working life, and finished its active career in 1934. The Britannic was sunk in the Mediterranean in 1915.
In 1912, Annie became a stewardess on the Titanic, giving her last address as Posbrook Road, Portsmouth, which was also the address of her younger sister, Phoebe. She was paid £3/10/00
a month. She embarked on the Titanic on its fateful voyage at Southampton, when she was 39 years old. A few days later, as everyone knows, the Titanic was hit by an iceberg, and sank within a few hours, with the loss of more than 1500 lives.
At first, Mrs Coughlan, as she now liked to call herself, was thought to have perished, and appeared on the official list of the missing. She did, however, manage to get a place on one of the lifeboats
(Boat 11), was picked up by the Carpathia, and disembarked in New York City on 12 April 1912.
Nothing is known of her whereabouts immediately after this. However, in the mid- to late 20s, she was known to have worked at The Royal Hotel in Bideford. It was also known that one of her sisters lived in Northam. This is assumed to be Phoebe Humby, her younger sister, with whom she was very close. After she left the Royal, she appears to have moved to Combe Martin, where she lived a quiet life, and where she died in 1936. A local newspaper at the time reported her death,
mentioning that her husband (presumably Mr Coughlan), had drowned with the Titanic, adding that
she had lived in Bideford, before moving to Combe Martin, and had a sister who still lived in Northam. Her sister moved to Barnstaple after this date, and died there in 1951.
If anything, the story of Phoebe is even more interesting. When she was a young girl of 14, she was convicted of attempting to murder her father. Her father, as mentioned above, brought up his family in Guernsey, where he worked as a butcher and a publican. At this time, he was separated from his wife, and he would often leave Phoebe alone at the bar, which she hated. Eventually, she struck up a relationship with a soldier, and they both decided to run away. However, her father found out about this before they had the opportunity to do so, and gave Phoebe a serious thrashing. In retaliation, Phoebe attempted to murder her father by poisoning his tea with oxalic acid. However,
William felt nauseous after sipping it, and decided not to drink it. Apparently, there was enough
oxalic acid in the tea to kill three or four people. Phoebe was sentenced to two years’ hard labour for her crime, and this was widely reported in the national press at the time.
Phoebe died in Barnstaple in 1951.
Chris Trigger's Blog 