THE STELLA' MEMORIAL FUND.
go THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
Sin, —As many of your readers seem to take kindly interest in our Stella' Stewardess Memorial Fund, I hope you will allow me to tell you what we propose doing. Our fund is to be disposed as follows :—(a) Simple memorial (2250). (b) Support of aged father, and starting in life of the two children (2250). (c) Any surplus to go to the Mayor of Southampton's fund for the relief of all the sufferers from the 'Stella' disaster.
(a) The memorial is to take the form of a large stone seat, with suitable inscription, which we propose to offer to the people of Southampton to place in some public garden or suitable site overlooking the sea and shipping. Miss Frances Power Cobbe and Mr. G. F. Watts, R.A., are directing me in this matter. We hope to erect a seat of as good a design, material, and workmanship as possible, but we are anxious that it shall be by no specially named artist, as we hope that the holiday-maker and loiterer sitting there may think of the self-sacrificing act rather than of the artistic merits of the monument ? I have perhaps named rather too large a sum for this part of our memorial, but the surplus will be spent on a memorial tablet in London, possibly on the memorial wall contemplated by Mr. Watts. or wherever in London it may be deemed best to place it. We also hope to help a little towards a memorial tablet in the church where Mrs. Rogers worshipped.
(b) As regards the second part of our fund, W. F. Rawnsley, Esq., J.P., Park Hill, Lyndhurst ; Thomas Young, Esq., The Retreat, Gordon Avenue, Southampton ; and M. Hewitt, Esq., of Messrs. Martin and Co., bankers, Sidcup, have kindly consented to act as trustees, and to administer the money as may be considered best for the Rogers family.
(c) Coming now to our last division, I should like to mention that the Mayor of Southampton's fund still needs support. I am still, therefore, willing to collect any small sums for this purpose from those who might hesitate to send such trifling sums direct to the Mayor. Thus we may feel that, in her death as in her life, Mary Rogers helped other sufferers. I have seen and heard of so many sad cases of bereavement, that it is difficult to refrain from mentioning some, but I will only here mention one specially sad case of the loss of the breadwinner of the family,—Ada Preston (the under-stewardess). Her father was for fifteen years in the service of the South-Western Railway. For five years he was chief engineer, then gradually became paralysed. For the last three years he has been unable to walk. The South- Western Railway have continued to give him some light work at home by which be earns from 8s. to 10s. per week. A little time before the ill-fated trip of the Stella' Ada Preston applied to be taken on as a stewardess, and the very first time she went to sea she was lost. Her name was not in the first lists of the missing crew, and it is not exactly known how she met her fate ; the probability is that she, being fired by the example of Mrs. Rogers, was also helping others. That she met her death nobly with all the crew cannot be doubted The Warden of Glenalmond in a beautiful sermon, which will shortly be printed with a photogravure of Mrs. Rogers, pays a fine tribute to the splendid behaviour of all the crew in those awful eight minutes in the face of death. He also points out clearly why we and all those who have subscribed to this fund desire to raise a lasting memorial to this humble woman who so calmly helped all those under her care to save their lives, and who so deliberately, so cheerfully, gave up her own chance of escape lest she should endanger the lives of those in the already heavily laden boat.—I am, Sir, Sic., ANNIE J. BRYANS. Woollet Hall, North Cray, Kent, June 23rd.
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