Journalist Lisa Wilkinson’s latest project shines fresh light on a little-known Australian hero of the Titanic disaster – a woman whose story of rowing against the tide is one she could relate to during her own challenges over the past five years.

The Titanic Story of Evelyn, published by Hachette Australia this week on the 114^th anniversary of the sinking of the ocean liner after it hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean, is the culmination of Wilkinson’s extensive research into the life of Evelyn Marsden.

The former co-host of The Project says she came across the story of the young nurse by chance during a conversation with her husband, fellow author Peter FitzSimons.

“We were looking at a photo from the Titanic – one of the very few that exist – and I said to him: ‘I wonder if there were any Australians on the Titanic?’,” Wilkinson explains in a social media post.

“Well, it turns out there were six, but only one Australian-born survivor: A young kick-arse nurse from outback South Australia whose efforts on the night of the sinking of the Titanic were literally heroic, but they also involved a superpower that she learnt while growing up in South Australia.

“Her story is unbelievable.”

Described in Hachette’s promotional material for the book as “a young girl with big dreams”, Marsden was a champion rower who used to challenge herself by rowing against the tide during family holidays by the River Murray.

After training as a nurse in Adelaide, the young adventurer travelled on ocean liners around the world as both a stewardess and nurse, before becoming one of the 2240 passengers and crew who boarded the ill-fated Titanic on its maiden voyage from Southampton in England in 1912.

While 1500 people died in the Titanic disaster, Marsden – who was 28 at the time – reportedly took the oars of one of the lifeboats and used her rowing skills to save herself and her fellow passengers by getting them away as the supposedly “unsinkable” ship went down.

Considered the wonder of its age, the Titanic sank in April 1912.

“There’s also a beautiful love story of a ship’s doctor that she fell in love with,” Wilkinson says, referring to Marsden’s engagement to Dr William James Abel, who also worked for Titanic operator White Star Line but was not on its tragic voyage.

“How that all comes about and how that ends is both incredible and heartbreaking.”

For the past three years, Marsden’s story has consumed Wilkinson, who is well known to Australians as the former co-host of Channel Nine’s Today show and, after that, Ten’s now-axed current affairs program The Project.

She writes in the foreword to The Titanic Story of Evelyn that the idea for the book came at a difficult time in her life.

Wilkinson has spent much of the past five years embroiled in legal proceedings after former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann sued her for defamation following her 2021 interview on The Project with his rape accuser Brittany Higgins, and a subsequent Logies acceptance speech in which she praised Higgins.

Lehrmann ultimately suffered a ruinous loss in the defamation case and last week exhausted all his avenues of appeal, with Wilkinson issuing a statement saying the long-running case had taken a “huge toll” on all those involved and she was relieved at the final result.

 

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In an interview with news.com.au’s Stellar magazine on the weekend, Wilkinson – who claims it was Ten’s decision to take her off air at the end of 2022 – said she was “just trying to get through every day the best way I could” when the book project came along.

“This story felt like a gift that landed in my lap… it was the most incredibly wonderful distraction to be able to delve into someone else’s life.”

Wilkinson was fascinated to learn during her online research that Marsden used to regularly row against the current on the Murray.

“Given the situation I was in when I came across this story, I felt like that was all I was doing every single day – rowing against a tide,” she told Stellar.

“I think that was the moment when I just fell in love with her and just knew that I had to do this story.”

Speaking candidly with Kate Langbroek on the Mamamia podcast No Filter, she reiterated the fact that the book gave her a much-needed focus and purpose during the highly publicised legal wrangles.

“I didn’t want to read about myself anymore,” she said. “To be able to not focus on me… to be elevated by this woman’s otherwise unknown magnificence… every day I worked on this project, I just felt good.”

Wilkinson hasn’t given any indication whether she wants to return to a television role one day, but has suggested it may be timely to update her 2021 autobiography, It Wasn’t Meant to be Like This, and that she has also started researching another story.

She admitted to Langbroek that she has been on “a huge learning curve”, but said she was stronger for it.

“I know who counts in my life. I have seen enormous kindness – I’ve seen the best of people and I’ve seen the worst of people, and you can’t say that I’m not still learning.”