ATHENIA SURVIVOR

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 October 1939, Page 8

ATHENIA SURVIVOR

MARRIED WITHIN A WEEK LONDON, September 18. A survivor of the Athenia, Miss Joan St. Clair Stobart, who narrowly escaped death when the liner was torpedoed. and whose grandmother, Mrs. M. A. St. Clair Stobart, was condemned to be shot, as a. spy by Germans during the last war, was married at the church of St. Oswald, Aldershot, seven days after the vessel was attacked. The bridegroom was Lieutenant John F. G. Crichton, of Aidershot. Mrs. St. Clair Stobart was the first woman to command a field hospital in war time. In 1914 she organised hospitals (women’s units) in Belgium and France for the St. John Ambulance Association. She was sentenced by the Germans as a spy after they had arrested her in Belgium. She and two companions. after being kept in prison for six days, wore set free, and the sentences were quashed. Mrs. St. Clair Stobart said this week: "My two granddaughters, Joan and her sister Phylis, were aboard the Athenia. They intended visiting their grand-parents in British Columbia. “The original arrangements were that Joan’s marriage should take place about Christmas time, when she would have returned to England. As I

her fiance was due to take up his duties in a few days’ time, they very wisely decided to get married at once.”