PREVIEW: ORDERS, DECORATIONS, MEDALS AND MILITARIA: 16 JULY

The sinking of the RMS Lusitania off the coast of Ireland on 7 May 1915 was one of the great – and notorious – tragedies of the First World War, with 1,193 of its 1960 passengers and crew dying after the ship went down, hit by a German torpedo. It paved the way for The United States to join the war effort with the Allies two years later.

Fewer than 20 of those recorded to have perished were female members of the Mercantile Marine and Mercantile Marine Reserve. One of them was Matron Anna Endersen, of the, and her group of medals appears in this sale with an estimate of £10,000-14,000.

Anna Endresen (Served as Endersen/Enderson) was born in Norway in 1875. By 1915 she was a widow living with her daughter Miss L. Enderson at 50, Spenser Street, Bootle, Lancashire.

She was a professional in the British Mercantile Marine and had previously served on the Cunard liner Cameronia as Anna Enderson and engaged as Matron in the Stewards' Department for Lusitania's voyage from Liverpool at a monthly rate of pay of £5, reporting for duty at 7 a.m. on 17 April, after which the liner left Liverpool for the last time, bound for New York.

Having arrived at New York without mishap on 24 April, the Lusitania began her return journey to Liverpool on the afternoon of 1st May, following a delayed start. Six days later the huge liner was torpedoed and sunk off the coast of Southern Ireland by the German submarine U-20.

Matron Endersen was killed as a result of this action. Her body was subsequently recovered from the sea and landed at Queenstown, where it was given the reference number ‘71' in one of the temporary mortuaries set up there – almost certainly the one in the yard next to the Cunard office on the waterfront at Lynch’s Quay. Her remains were buried on 10 May, in The Old Church Cemetery, Queenstown, in Mass Grave C, 1st Row, Upper Tier, where she lies today.

Matron Endersen was 40 years old. 10th May was when most other victims were buried also, and a long procession of mourners, which had begun outside the Cunard office in the town, was followed by a communal funeral.

Possessions recovered from her body, which probably aided identification, were handed to her daughter in Liverpool on 29 October 1915.

Twelve women have been identified on the Tower Hill Memorial to serving members of the Mercantile Marine and Mercantile Marine Reserve who were lost on the Lusitania and who may have received medals and memorial plaques. A further five (including Matron Endersen) are recorded on the Cobh Memorial, County Cork. This indicates the rarity of the group offered in this sale, especially so when it is remembered that the Mercantile Marine medals had to be claimed by the recipients or their next of kin and only approximately 50% of those entitled actually did so.

Anna Endresen's group includes a British War Medal 1914-20; Mercantile Marine War Medal 1914-18 together with Memorial Plaque ‘She Died For Freedom and Honour’,  the plaque contained in an attractive contemporary ebonised frame.