Miss Annie Jessie Harper, often known as Nana or Nina, was born on 3 January 1906 in Govan, Lanarkshire, Scotland.
She was the daughter of John Harper (b. 1872), an evangelical pastor and a native of Renfrewshire, and the former Annie Leckie Bell (b. 1866), also a native of Govan and who had previously worked as a dressmaker. John and Annie had married in 1903 and Annie was fated to be their only child when her mother died following complications arising from childbirth on 8 January 1906. Her mother’s niece Jessie Wills Leitch, a Renfrewshire native who had lived with Annie much of her life, stepped in to help take care of baby Nana. This was imperative as John Harper worked and preached throughout Britain and Ireland, including North America.
Her father later became pastor of the Walworth Road Baptist Church in London and they moved to that city. They were listed on the 1911 census living at 3 Claude Villas, Love Walk, Camberwell.
Nana, her father and her cousin Jessie boarded the Titanic at Southampton as second class passengers (joint ticket number 248727 which cost £33) and they were travelling to the Moody Church in Chicago, Illinois. She is listed in the passenger list as Nina Harper.
Jessie Leitch later recalled the events on the night of the sinking:
“… About midnight Mr Harper came to our stateroom and told us that the vessel had struck an iceberg. While I was dressing he went to learn further particulars and returned to say that the order had been given to put on the life belts. We did so, and, picking up Nana in his arms, he took her up to the deck. There the women were ordered to the upperdeck. I had to climb a vertical iron ladder and Mr Harper brought Nana after me up the ladder and the men at the top lifted her up to me again… There was no opportunity for farewell, and, in fact, even then we did not realize the danger, as we were assured again and again that the vessel could not sink, that the Olympic would be alongside at any minute, and that the women and children were to be put into the boats first and the men to follow, and that there were boats sufficient for all. Our boat was well manned–it was the eleventh to leave the vessel… After about half an hour the Titanic went down. We were about a mile away.”
Nana’s own recollections were sparse but she later recalled sitting on her cousin Jessie’s knee as she watched the Titanic sink and she later recalled the noise of those struggling in the water.
Jessie and Nana are believed to have been rescued in lifeboat 11 but Pastor Harper was lost in the sinking. Following their rescue by Carpathia they were not given a cabin but slept in a library aboard ship. Arriving in New York, still in the clothes they wore to leave the Titanic, Jessie and Nana were met by the Reverend Ervine Wooley, the assistant pastor of Moody Church. Jessie elected not to continue to Chicago and decided instead to return to England at the earliest available opportunity and arrived aboard the Celtic on 25 April.
Nana, now an orphan, returned to England and was apparently raised by an uncle and aunt in London. In 1921 she performed the opening ceremony of the Harper Memorial Baptist Church in Glasgow, which was dedicated to her father’s memory. During her upbringing, however, discussion of Titanic was discouraged by her family.
She later worked at Riglands Bible College in London and it was there that she met Philip Roy Pont (b. 1903), an alumnus of All Saints Bible College and a native of Heathfield, Sussex, the son of a grocer. The pair were married in London in the closing months of 1934 and they had two children: Gordon and Mary (later Dr Gurling).
The family moved back to Scotland around 1936 where Philip was the pastor at a Baptist Church in Denny, Falkirk before they moved to Shetland followed by Dundee and eventually Glasgow. Philip retired in around 1984 and they settled in Burnside, Lanarkshire.
Nana, known more frequently as Nan in her later years, continued to live in Burnside but had few memories of her time on Titanic. She therefore spoke little about that experience in her life but did keep in regular contact with the Titanic community and with fellow survivor Eva Hart who remembered playing with her on Titanic as a child, past exchanges that Nan had no recollections of.
Nan Harper Pont died at her home on 10 April 1986 aged 80, 74 years to the day when Titanic had departed from Southampton. She was buried in Moffat Cemetery and left behind her husband Philip (who died in 1995) and her two children and their families.
References and Sources
Glasgow Herald, 11 April 1986, Death Notice
Annie Jessie Harper was born on 3rd January 1906, her mother died just 5 days later. Her father, a Baptist Preacher, decided in 1912 to travel to Chicago to preach at a Church there. He booked 3 second class berths on RMS Titanic for himself, his sister Jessie Wills Leitch and his daughter Annie Jessie Harper (known as Nan).
When the ship struck the infamous iceberg on the night of 14th April 1912 John Harper wakened his sister & grabbed a sleeping Nan from her berth, wrapping her in a blanket before taking them up on deck. There he kissed Nan goodbye, handed her to a crewman and watched as she and her aunt were safely stowed in a lifeboat, John remained on board to give support to the distressed passengers- he went down with the ship. Many years later Nan recalled that she was sitting on her aunt’s lap when she saw the Titanic sink and she remembered watching the lights go out and hearing the screams of the drowning.
Rescued by the Carpathia and taken to New York, Nan and her aunt returned to England later that same month. Nan was brought up by her father’s brother George Harper. It was when Nan was at Riglands Bible College that she met Philip Roy Pont who she married in London in 1934. Philip Roy Pont was ordained and in 1964 the couple moved to Moffat when Reverend Pont took charge at St. John’s Episcopal Church where he preached for the next 20 years. They lived in St. John’s Vicarage at 3 Mansfield Place in Moffat.
Nan died on the 10th April 1986; 74 years to the day after the Titanic set sail from Southampton. Jim Storrar (Moffat Miscellany Volume 2, pp145-146) describes her: “Nan was a wonderfully gentle and kind person, and her voice was a soft Glasgow brogue. When she was 72, she was asked if she would like to see the Titanic raised “I don’t see much point in it after all this time,” she replied.”
Both Nan and her husband are buried in Moffat New Cemetery.
The final letter sent by an unsung hero of the Titanic disaster who sacrificed his own life for others has been unearthed almost 110 years later.
John Harper placed his six-year-old daughter Nina and niece into lifeboat 11 but gave up the chance to go with her so another woman or child could be saved.
He did so knowing the decision would likely make his daughter an orphan as her mother had previously died.
As the liner began to sink Mr Harper, a Baptist minister, ran along the flooded decks, preaching the gospel to anyone who would listen.
He also gave away his own lifejacket to another men, telling him ‘you need this more than I do’, before going down with the ship.
He is also said to have preached to those in the freezing water after the liber sank, dying in it himself. He was 39.
His niece Jessie went to be the longest-living Scottish Titanic survivor and died in 1986.
Three days before the 1912 disaster, the pastor , from Houston, Renfrewshire in Scotland, wrote a last letter home to his great-grandfather, Charles Livingstone, of 5 Porter Street, Glasgow.
The letter is written on White Star Line headed notepaper
In it he told him of the ‘glorious time’ he, his daughter and niece – who also survived – had been having on the Titanic.
He wrote the note on White Star Line headed notepaper while the Titanic was en route from Cherbourg to Ireland.
The never-before-seen letter was posted at Queenstown (Cork), which was the doomed liner’s last port of call.
It remained in the family but has now been put up for sale for the first time.
It is being sold by Henry Aldridge and Son Auctioneers of Devizes, Wilts, and has a pre-sale estimate of £50,000.
Mr Harper was known to be an engaging and impressive pastor and was on his way to America to serve at the Moody Church in Chicago.
He and his daughter and niece, Jessie Leitch, boarded Titanic at Southampton on April 10 for her maiden voyage to New York.
A famous photograph showing a little girl holding her father’s hand as they walked on the second class promenade during the voyage is believed to be Mr Harper and Nina.
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