Name
Lifeboat from Titanic
Lifeboat to Carpathia
Confidence Level
Madigan, Miss Margaret
4 (4 votes)
15 (4 votes)
4 (4 votes)
15 (4 votes)
4:13
3.25

 


New York World Telegram, April 14, 1952, in summary:
    Madigan talks about a lifeboat crushing another, one spilling its people, etc. But she says she witnessed Mr. and Mrs. Straus, which is on the forward port side, that her boat pulled a Swede in from the water, and she specifically names Nellie Hocking Hambly as being in her boat, although she remembered her as being an older woman (perhaps confusing Nellie with her mother).

We're relatively certain Nellie Hocking was in boat 4.

From Bob Bracken's Madigan article, at https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/titanic-survivor/margaret-maggie-madigan.html says:
    "Maggie and Bertha [Moran] had retired early Sunday evening, April 14, and were asleep when Titanic had her fateful brush with the iceberg. Having a cabin so deep within the ship, they felt the collision much more vividly than the first and second class passengers with accommodations on higher decks. They were actually jolted awake by the collision and roused from their sleep by the commotion in the hallway outside their cabin. Confused and frightened, Maggie and Bertha were soon joined by Daniel and Patrick who hustled them to the third class promenade area where they managed to climb to the boat deck with many other steerage passengers, after having been held back by crewmen for a period of time. Having ascended to the boat deck at the stern of Titanic, Maggie and her friends found Father Thomas R. D. Byles, an English priest from Ongar, Essex, ministering to and consoling many of Titanic's steerage passengers, reciting prayers and trying to calm them as attempts were being made to place the women and children in the last of the lifeboats, notably numbers 13, 14, 15 and 16. Daniel and Patrick fought to place Maggie and Bertha into lifeboat 15 shortly before it descended from the boat deck. After narrowly avoiding crushing boat 13, which had become entangled under it as it descended from the boat deck, the overcrowded lifeboat hit the water and barely stayed afloat that long cold night. They never saw Daniel and Patrick again."

Bracken told Mike Poirier his article was based on his correspondence with the niece and apparently Maggie wrote home and had said that she got a spot in a lifeboat with a friend.

In the New York Sun, May 3, 1912, Bertha Moran says her brother escorted her to boat 15, but makes no mention of anyone else with her. Perhaps he went back and brought Maggie Madigan on deck in time to get into #4?

But perhaps lifeboat #15 fits as well. If Maggie saw Mr. and Mrs. Straus at her boat, as opposed to another older couple who did not want to part, it's hard to see how this could have happened at boat 4 without Colonel Gracie reporting it. His account of the filling and departure of No.4 is most detailed. And it still seems likely that Maggie would have left with Bertha Moran, even if she did not explicitly say so. On the other hand, we don't know that Maggie went straight to boat 4. Also, it's important to remember that those who entered boat #4 were ordered down from the boat deck to A deck. Also, as neither lady mentions the other, there seems to be little actual evidence that Maggie was in #15.

We did not come to a concensus on Miss Madigan's lifeboat, hence, votes for both boats.