The meaning of "I was given".
I was reading an article about the Titanic and the following sentence cought my attention.

"We were given clothes because I'd only got my nightclothes and a blanket around me."

At the first sight I got confused because I did not get why someone who was getting saved from the sea was giving clothes to someone else, even coz she said, "I'd only got my nightclothes and a blanket around me", so, that makes no sense. Then, of course, I realized what was the real meaning of the sentence, because it is obvious that in this case the verb GIVEN means that they gave them clothes.

Can you explain me why in this particular case the verb "given" has this meaning?

Thank you!

Question

The meaning of "I was given".
I was reading an article about the Titanic and the following sentence cought my attention. 
 
"We were given clothes because I'd only got my nightclothes and a blanket around me." 
 
At the first sight I got confused because I did not get why someone who was getting saved from the sea was giving clothes to someone else, even coz she said, "I'd only got my nightclothes and a blanket around me", so, that makes no sense. Then, of course, I realized what was the real meaning of the sentence, because it is obvious that in this case the verb GIVEN means that they gave them clothes.

Can you explain me why in this particular case the verb "given" has this meaning?

Thank you!

Answer

Thank you for your help, now I got it. Anyway I'm going to take a look on the passive voice :)

Answer

As Jmat and Richard observe, this is a passive construction. The active equivalent would be "they gave us clothes ...". The next point  is that "give" can take a double object. The direct one in my example is "clothes"; the indirect one is "us" ("to us", effectively). That "us" becomes the subject when reformulated in the passive.

Answer

Jmat is correct. Here's a link that explains the 'passive voice':

http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/activepassive.html

Answer

Have you learned the passive voice yet? You'll want to look it up.

Answer

Hello afdan! "I'd only got" here is not really proper english, its more slang. "I'd only got my nightclothes" means  that that is all they were wearing. "I only had my nightclothes and a blanket around me" would be more proper.