by Steve Turner
He probably stayed at Birkenhead overnight because the newspaper reports claimed that he left for Southampton on the Sunday morning train from Birkenhead’s Woodside station, next to the ferry terminal, “in company with other of the vessel’s staff.” There were only three other Birkenhead residents working on the Titanic—stewardess Sarah Stap, engineer J. C. Evans, and assistant storekeeper Charles Morgan. There were twenty-five crew members from Liverpool, but there would be no reason for them to travel from Birkenhead when they could go via Birmingham from Liverpool’s Lime Street station.
The trains from Woodside station could have taken him directly to London Paddington, from where he could have made his way south to Waterloo station and the boat train (a boat designed to take passengers from land to a boat) to Southampton. Or he could have changed trains in Birmingham in order to avoid coming through London.
With the miners’ strike at an end by April 6, it was reckoned that the coal mines would be working as normal by Wednesday but there would still be a three-week wait for coal. This would affect the Titanic in two ways. First, it meant that crew would be easy to pick up because the strike had left more than seventeen thousand men unemployed in Southampton. Second, it meant that coal for the Titanic had to be taken from other ships, including the Oceanic and the Majestic, to make sure it had enough on board. This, in turn, caused delays and cancelations, which resulted in passengers from those ships being transferred to the Titanic.
The next day, April 8, the Mauretania arrived in Liverpool, bringing with it Wallace Hartley, Theo Brailey, and Roger Bricoux. The front page of the Daily Mirror was dominated by the image of a Norwegian ship that had run aground on some rocks on the coast of Cornwall during heavy fog. The paper noted that it was “the twentieth vessel to be wrecked off the Cornish coast this winter.” In the sea near Eastbourne, divers were still exploring the submerged wreck of the P & O liner Oceana, where they had already salvaged eight boxes of gold and fifteen ingots of silver after locating the keys to the strong room in the left-hand drawer of the captain’s desk.
As the Mauretania didn’t dock until late in the day, the three musicians may well have stayed on board the ship for the night and then made their way into the city the next morning. They would each have needed to sort out their uniforms and make a visit to the offices of Charlie and Frederick Black. We know from a letter found on Hartley’s body that he’d planned to rendezvous with a musician friend named Bill, near a violin maker’s workshop at 14 Brook’s Alley run by George Byrom, where he had presumably gone to get a fresh supply of strings for his violin.
Letter to Hartley from his friend Bill.
They missed each other and, as Hartley had Bill’s reply dated April 9 on him when he boarded the Titanic, we can only assume that Bill must have handed the letter to Charlie Black to ensure Hartley got it before leaving for Southampton. “My Dear Wallace,” Bill wrote, “Am very sorry that I missed you. I waited at the end of Brook’s Alley and got to Byrom’s just after you had left. Jolly good luck, old chap. Would give more than a trifle to be with you. Don’t forget to drop me a line at 61, Lea Road.” The address was in Egremont on the Wirral and was the home of a musical instrument maker named John McLeod; his wife, Eleanor; and their children. It could be that John was known as “Bill” and had done work for Hartley, but it is more likely that Bill was one of the many ship musicians working out of Liverpool (hence “Would give more than a trifle to be with you”) and one who would rendezvous with the McLeod family when on leave.
None of the three musicians had time to achieve all they wanted to before the sailing of the Titanic. Theo Brailey would probably have gone to see his fiancée, Teresa, in Southport, because it was not too far away but there wouldn’t have been time to call on his parents in London as well. Roger Bricoux checked into a guesthouse on Globe Street and may have had a rendezvous with Adelaide Kelsall. Hartley had no time to see either his parents or his girlfriend, Maria Robinson. He had to content himself with sending a parcel of washing home to his mother and sending letters of apology to those he felt he should have seen. Maybe one of the musicians read the “Thought for the Day” in the Daily Mirror with a wry smile: “It is good to hope for the best. It is good also to prepare for the worst. Both happiness and ill fortune shall be the reward of the man who considers each step before he takes it.”
Finally Hartley, maybe in the company of Bricoux and Brailey, made his way by rail from Liverpool to Birmingham and then from Birmingham directly to Southampton via the Midlands towns of Coventry, Leamington, and Banbury. Seated in a carriage with the smoke of the engine billowing past the window, he wrote a letter to his parents that he was able to pop into a post box on the platform at Reading before the train set off for Basingstoke and Winchester. In London, Georges Krins and Percy Taylor must have made plans to catch the boat train from Waterloo to Southampton Docks, a train that would arrive at 9:30 a.m. on the day of departure. Wes Woodward left from Oxford with his “best cello” and possibly caught the same train that Hartley was already on. Jock Hume, with two expensive rented violins that he planned to try out, took the train down to London from Dumfries.
The Titanic continued to fill its holds. Its eventual load would total almost 560 tons of cargo (including 11,524 individual pieces) and 5,800 tons of coal, 4,427 tons of which had to be taken from other ships. By Monday it was time to load the more perishable goods, such as 75,000 pounds of meat, 11,000 pounds of fish, and 7,000 heads of lettuce. Another Board of Trade surveyor, Captain Clark, inspected the ship, as did the captain appointed for the job, Edward Smith, who was photographed on the bridge for the one and only time. Thomas Andrews wrote home to his wife: “The Titanic is now about complete and will, I think, do the old Firm credit tomorrow when we sail.”
10
“WE HAVE A FINE BAND.”
Whether or not they had traveled down to Southampton on the boat train that arrived early in the morning of April 10, the musicians would have joined the crowd of second-and third-class passengers streaming toward berths 43/44 of the White Star’s dock, where the majestic Titanic lay with its bow pointed at the Solent. They would have boarded by the second-class entrance on C Deck, toward the back of the ship, and taken the elevator or staircase two flights down to E Deck, where there was a designated musicians’ room on the starboard side with three sets of bunk beds, drawers, a wardrobe, a basin, and a separate cabin in which to store their instruments. A second room, again for 5 musicians was on the port side, squeezed between a room for washing potatoes, and accomodation for its workers. It’s likely that the ‘saloon orchestra’ took the better cabin.1
While the attention of the world was on the glamour and high living of the top decks, the musicians, along with stewards, nurses, clerks, cooks, waiters, and other second-and third-class passengers were down below, not far from the casings of the ship’s engines, in what the crew jokingly referred to as “the glory hole.” They would have perhaps been on board by 10:00 or 10:30 a.m., preparing for the arrival of the first-class passengers who were traditionally played on to the ship and offered a glass of champagne from a silver tray.
For Jock Hume and Wes Woodward it would have been a reunion after not having seen each other since the Hawke had rammed the Olympic six months previously. There was time to share their experiences of the Mediterranean—they were in Alexandria, Egypt, within days of each other—and discuss the highs and lows of life on the sister ships the Carmania and Caronia. They must have both felt a certain sense of déjà vu on entering the Titanic at Southampton, having gone through exactly the same process on the Olympic on her maiden voyage. Even though they’d only yet taken a short walk on this ship, they must have started making comparisons. Stewardess Violet Jessop, who’d also served on the Olympic, thought the crew accommodation was a vast improvement and was pleased that architect Thomas Andrews, who had canvassed her and her colleagues about how things could be made better, had implemented many of their suggestions. She thought the Titanic was “dec
idedly grander and improved in every way.”
For Wallace Hartley, Roger Bricoux, and Theo Brailey, there were only a few days of catching up to do. There would have been light conversation about how they’d spent their time and perhaps about their regrets at not being able to see their families and girlfriends during their time off. Hartley, Brailey, and Hume were all planning weddings by the year’s end and Woodward was said to have a girlfriend in London.
If Hartley hadn’t already met Woodward and Hume, now was the time to introduce himself as bandleader. He’d no doubt heard good things about them from their mutual friend Edgar Heap and it was Hartley’s job now to exert his authority and explain what was expected. Perhaps Hartley had been given an advance passenger list in order to impress on his musicians the gravity of their task on this voyage. There was John Jacob Astor, one of the richest men in America; the steel tycoon Benjamin Guggenheim; historian Archibald Gracie; French aviator Pierre Maréchal; the American president’s chief military advisor, Archibald Butt; English fashion designer Lady Lucille Duff-Gordon; British journalist and author W. T. Stead; young film actress Dorothy Gibson; novelist Jacques Futrelle; Broadway producer Henry B. Harris; and the painter Francis Davis Millet. Then there was J. Bruce Ismay, chairman of the White Star Line, and Harland & Wolff designer Thomas Andrews.
Theo Brailey would certainly have known who W. T. Stead was and may even have met him through his father because he was the best-known and most respected advocate of spiritualism in Britain. He was certainly the highest-profile Briton on the ship. He was on his way to New York to address a peace conference at Carnegie Hall for the Great Men and Religions Congress where he would share a stage with the black political leader Booker T. Washington, the great orator and politician William Jennings Bryan, and the president of the United States, William Howard Taft.
Fred Clarke, Georges Krins, and Percy Taylor must have felt like outsiders at this early stage. They knew how to play their instruments, but they had no experience working on a liner. They may have wondered how the rolling of the ship might affect their ability to play. The names and places that the others spoke about so knowingly wouldn’t have meant anything to them. There’s a chance that Taylor and Krins were already acquainted through musical circles in London. If they weren’t already familiar with each other, they would have found common ground in their knowledge of Vauxhall and Brixton. Of course, Krins and Bricoux would have been able to talk to each other in their native French tongue. Clarke may have still been feeling a little unwell or a little apprehensive, not knowing what life would be like on the ship plus wondering what he would discover when he arrived in New York to settle his father’s estate.
But the fellowship of music would soon have overridden the initial atmosphere of caution. Once they got their instruments out of their cases, the only thing that mattered was how well they played and how sensitive they were to each other’s moves. They would have already been given copies of the White Star Line’s current music book—actually a small booklet produced by the Black agency—that listed the titles of the 352 tunes the musicians needed to know. Each first-class passenger would have a copy and could call out the number of the tune, knowing the band could play it.
White Star music book listing 352 tunes.
Hartley would then have talked them through their duties. Three of the musicians would mainly be on B Deck playing in the reception room immediately outside the first-class à la carte restaurant or at the Café Parisien, which was on the starboard side of the ship. Their job was to create an ambience of the city that the Daily Mirror thought had become the contemporary equivalent of Athens—the city of philosophy, poetry, art, gastronomy, cabaret, dancing girls, pavement cafés, and love. They would have their own library of tunes that would differ from the library of the quintet.
The Prince of Wales was in Paris on a royal visit and the Daily Mirror had compared the delight of a Briton visiting Paris with that of a Roman youth making his way to Athens in a bygone age. Paris, it observed, was where the daughters of the rich went for a year to improve themselves. “It is a wise choice, and an example bound to be followed by innumerable youths of humbler birth in England. The Americans, more generally than ourselves, have realized how much Paris can contribute to education.” Paris was a “civilising city” and a “studious city” that made London seem crude and frivolous by comparison.
The Parisien was an innovation introduced on the Titanic—a French café with wicker chairs and large picture windows that could be rolled up when the weather was good, that served coffee and pastries. The à la carte restaurant differed from the main saloon in providing a choice of as many as ten courses and allowing passengers to eat at a time of their choice. The cost of meals here was not included in the fare. All bills had to be settled at the tables by cash or check. It had the effect of creating a class division even among first-class passengers—the division between the rich and the really rich.
The other five musicians would play in a variety of places, mainly in the first-class lounge during afternoon tea and the dining saloon on D Deck for luncheon and dinner. Passengers reported hearing them in the second-class reading room, the first-class reception area, the companionway, and the Palm Room. In addition they could be asked to play at the Anglican church service conducted by the captain on Sunday morning in the dining saloon, and on special occasions such as galas, concerts, and receptions.
By 11:30 a number of the musicians were assembled in the first-class reception area playing music to welcome the ship’s most wealthy and glamorous passengers on board. That job done, they would have had to hurry back downstairs to be in place as a quintet and a trio in the dining saloon and outside the à la carte restaurant, respectively, for the first luncheons to be served on the ship.
The Southampton dock from which the Titanic sailed as it looks today.
The Titanic left its moorings at midday pulled by its tugs and was still in Southampton Water when it narrowly avoided a collision with the American steamer New York. The suction caused by the displacement of the Titanic’s bulk was so strong that it snapped the New York’s mooring ropes, causing the ship to swing toward her. Only quick action by the Vulcan, one of the Titanic’s tugs, prevented a minor disaster. Passengers and crew were aware of what was happening, as it delayed the exit from Southampton by an hour.
Without doubt Brailey and Woodward would have had flashbacks of their previous experience of being rammed by another vessel in the same waters. Passenger Lawrence Beesley wrote:
As we steamed down the river, the scene we had just witnessed was the topic of every conversation. The comparison with the Olympic-Hawke collision was drawn in every little group of passengers, and it seemed to be generally agreed that this would confirm the suction theory which was so successfully advanced by the cruiser Hawke in the law courts, but which many people scoffed at when the British Admiralty first suggested it as the explanation of the cruiser ramming the Olympic.
This was not a minor near miss that we only know about now because it could seem to be an omen; it was reported and commented on at the time. The Daily Telegraph of April 11 headlined the story “An Alarming Incident”:
A sensational incident attended the sailing of the Titanic yesterday, from Southampton, on her maiden voyage. Having to pass at the Test Quay the liners Oceanic and New York, the latter seems to have been so seriously affected by the suction of the Titanic’s screws that her stern ropes, seven in number, parted, and her stern swung into midstream. The Titanic’s engines were stopped and the New York was towed to another berth.
The Titanic’s first stop was in Cherbourg, France, which it reached at 5:30, anchoring outside the port and taking on passengers and mail from two tenders. The musicians were already playing for diners taking tea or for the early evening meal, delayed because of the late start. The placid mood was captured in a recently discovered letter written by perfumer Adolph Saalfeld to his wife in the late hours of that first day:
Daily Teleg
raph report on Titanic’s near collision on leaving Southampton.
The weather is calm and fine, the sky overcast … I have quite an appetite for luncheon. Soup, fillet of plaice, a loin chop with cauliflower and fried potatoes, Apple Manhattan and Roquefort cheese, washed down with a large Spaten beer iced, so you can see I am not faring badly. I had a long promenade and a doze for an hour up to 5 ‘o’ clock. The band played in the afternoon for tea but I savour a coffee in the Veranda café with bread and butter and quite thought I should have to pay but everything in the eating line is gratis.
By 11:30 the musicians would have completed their duties and have been making their way back down to E Deck. Either then or early the next morning, Wallace Hartley wrote what would be his last letter home, a letter to be taken ashore by tender at Queenstown when the Titanic put down anchor and took on its final passengers. “Just a line to say we have got away all right. It has been a bit of a rush but I am just getting a little settled,” he wrote. “This is a fine ship and there ought to be plenty of money around. We have a fine band and the boys seem very nice. I missed coming home very much and it would have been nice to have seen you all, if only for an hour or two, but I could not manage it. Shall probably arrive home on the Sunday morning. All love, Wallace.”
It’s hard to imagine that he didn’t also write to Maria Robinson, expressing the same regret at not meeting and the desire to see her as soon as possible after his intended arrival back in Southampton on Saturday, April 27. His sight of the Irish coastline as it slipped by the starboard side of the Titanic was the last he’d ever see of dry land. The observation made by almost everyone who survived is the contrast between the smoothness and uneventfulness of the ship’s progress across the Atlantic and the enormity of the tragedy they were about to take part in.