Fish, Mrs. Sarah Mary

Mrs. Sarah Mary Fish, nee Rogers:  She was born Sarah Mary Rogers in Bridgwater, Somerset 3 June 1882 (her birth was registered in the third quarter of that year) to John, a butcher born about 1852 at North Petherton, and Elizabeth Ann (nee Harden) Rogers, born about 1857 at North Petherton. Her parents had married 20 October 1879 at North Petherton. Sarah Mary had been christened 27 June 1882 in North Petherton in the Church of England. Her brothers and sisters in 1891 included Edwin John, 10, Elizabeth (fellow survivor), 4, Cecelia Jane, 2, and Wilfred Robert Rogers, an infant. In 1901, she lived at Redland Road in Bristol and was listed as a visitor in the family of Sarah Fish (her future mother-in-law). The Fish family consisted of Sarah, 46, and her children Joseph, 21 (her future husband), Thomas, 18, Ella, 14, and Howard, 11. There was also a servant living in the household, Francis Alcock, 39, which suggests the family was rather well off. She had married Joseph Eustace Fish, of Redland, Bristol, a contractor, on 18 August, 1903. In 1911, she lived in Bridgwater with her daughters Eileen and Marion in the household of her mother Elizabeth Ann Rogers. Also present were her siblings Wilfred Robert, b. 1891, Annie Bertha, b. 1893, John William, b. 1895, and Bertram Arthur, b. 1897. He seems to have joined the British Army. She left Avonmouth (Bristol), England, about 17 September 1912 as a passenger on the steamship Royal Edward with her daughters Eileen and Marion and came to Montreal, Quebec, 25 September 1912. Her daughter Joan was born in Canada at some point after their arrival in Canada. In May 1915, she and her daughters and her sister Elizabeth Rogers were going to England on the Lusitania. Their point of origin was listed as Toronto by the Cunard Line. Little Joan was lost in the sinking of the Lusitania, but the other four members of the family survived. It is possible that she was the Sarah M. Fish who passed away in Bridgwater, Somerset, England, in 1955. The material presented on this page has been researched by Peter Engberg-Klarström. Copyright 2017 Peter Engberg-Klarström. Feel free to use the research, but please refer to my research if used in publications or if published or posted on other pages on the Internet.

BRISTOL LADY SAVES HER CHILD. HEROIC STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. As already announced, among the survivors were Mrs Sarah Fish and her two daughters, Eileen 10 years of age, and Marion 8. Her infant child, unhappily, is lost. Mrs Fish, who formerly resided in this city, was returning from Toronto, her husband, Lieut. J. Fish, being with the Canadian contingent, and their party included her sister, Miss Rogers. The story of their rescue is remarkable. When the torpedo struck the doomed liner, Mrs Fish and one of her daughters were having lunch. The other child was somewhere on deck, and it is astonishing fact that although all was chaos, the passage-ways and gangways being thronged with passengers, the mother and child hurrying upstairs met the other daughter coming down. Recollections of the terrible experience which follows are not, in this moment of grief, clear, but Mrs Fish remembers with gratitude that a gentleman— quite a stranger—came to her and proferred (sic) a life-belt. Mrs Fish told one of her children to fasten it on, but the brave little girl would not take it from her mother. Thereupon the gentleman took off his own and gave this to the child. One of the girls still had no lifebelt, and to her the mother clung as the great ship went down, dragging them far below the waves. They at length came to the surface, and for over an hour struggled in the sea. Reaching an overturned boat, to which several passengers were clinging, her appeal for her child was answered, and she herself was taken later into a collapsible boat, in which, strange to say, her other daughter was. Then a tug later picked them up and landed them at Queenstown. The fate of the infant child is narrated the interview with Mr Lander. This gentleman, to whom Mrs Fish is grateful for his splendid endeavour on behalf of her and her children, had taken the infant from Miss Rogers, but in the terrible struggle, deep down in the sea, the child was wrenched from his hands. At first it was thought that Miss Rogers was lost, as her name has not appeared in the list survivors. How she escaped is a mystery, as she had no lifebelt and was wearing thick coat. The two sisters met quite by chance Cork railway station, and came home to Bristol together.” (Western Daily Press, 10 May 1915, courtesy of British Newspaper Archive)