by Steve Turner
On the night of April 14, Martha Woodward woke in her bed in Headington, Oxford, convinced something had happened to her son Wes. At least, this was the story passed down in the family. As with all tragedies of this nature, the tales of warnings offered beforehand, sensations felt during, and visitations experienced afterward, have to be listened to with skepticism. A Scottish Salvation Army captain would later swear that on the fourteenth he was tending to a dying orphan girl who told him that she could see a big ship sinking with a person called Wally playing the violin coming toward her. Unknown to the child, the captain had apparently known Wallace Hartley as a boy.
The first that Britain knew about the sinking came from the evening editions of newspapers on Monday, April 15, when the story was that all had been rescued. On Tuesday, April 16, the news was bleaker. “Disaster to Titanic on Her Maiden Voyage” was the headline in the Daily Sketch with news inside that 655 were known to have been saved but 1,700 lives were feared lost. The next day it was 1,500 lost with 868 saved.
Part of the problem for the newspapers and for White Star was that no one was certain that the Carpathia was the only ship carrying survivors. There were vague hopes that other ships in the vicinity had rescued people. Then on April 18 came the news from White Star in Liverpool that the captain of the Olympic had announced: “Please allay rumours that Virginian has any Titanic passengers. Neither has the Tunisian. Believe only survivors on Carpathia.” As the Daily Sketch put it: “The worst fears have now received official confirmation.”
For the families of the musicians, the wait for final confirmation was tormenting. Hope was continually interrupted by grief and then grief was temporarily interrupted by hope. On April 17 the Dumfries Standard reported that among those on the Titanic was “Mr John Hume, son of Mr Andrew Hume, music teacher, George Street, Dumfries.” It added, “No news has yet been received as to whether he is among survivors.” The next day Andrew Hume visited the White Star Line office in Liverpool to find out what had happened. On April 20 the newspaper wrote: “Fears regarding the fate of Mr. John Hume, Dumfries … have now been practically confirmed.” The next day a memorial service was held for him at the Congregational chapel he’d attended as a boy.
It was also on April 20 that Charlie Black sent handwritten letters to each set of parents announcing the loss of their sons.
It is with great sadness that I have to give you the painful news of the death of your son in the wreck of the White Star Line steamer Titanic this past Monday April 15th. During the time that he was employed by us we have been in every way extremely satisfied with him both for his musical talent and his excellent character. It may be a comfort for you to know to know that he died a hero having had the courage to play as the ship sank. His name has been published today in all the newspapers where he is considered to be a hero. I would be grateful if you could acknowledge receipt of this letter. I share in your grievous loss and send you my sincerest sympathy.
Ronald and Amy Brailey had been distraught at hearing no news whatsoever about their only son but then were told that he had survived. They sent a telegram to Teresa Steinhilber in Southport saying there was “no cause for despair.” A few hours later they discovered that the report was wrong. Their son Theo was not among the survivors. They sent a second telegram telling Teresa of his death. She reacted so badly to the news that her parents sent her to Southport Convalescent Home to recover from the shock.
Letters and cards began pouring into the homes of the musicians’ bereaved families. Ronald Brailey published a letter of thanks in the spiritualist magazine Light in which he quoted from Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida:
Permit me to ask that the many correspondents who have sent to our home their sympathies over our great, great loss, will accept this acknowledgement, as it is impossible for me to reply to them individually. Truly we have found that “one touch of nature makes the whole world kin,” for from all over the British Isles we have received letters filled with expressions of deepest sympathy. The writers are of all shades of religious belief, and out of the oneness of hearts they have poured balm upon our sorrow for the physical loss of our earthly light and joy.
Soon after the sinking was confirmed, White Star contracted the Commercial Cable Company to collect any passengers’ bodies floating in the Atlantic. The CS Mackay-Bennett, one of its ships used to lay and repair transatlantic telegraph cables, was converted into a floating morgue for the task. On April 17 it set out from Halifax, Nova Scotia, with a search crew, hastily built coffins, an Anglican priest, an embalmer, and a team of undertakers. The job was to bring back as many bodies as possible for identification and burial.
Once the debris field was reached, search parties went out in small cutters and hauled the bodies aboard with nets and poles. On April 22 cable engineer Frederick Hamilton wrote in his journal:
We steamed close past the iceberg today, and endeavored to photograph it, but rain is falling and we do not think the results will be satisfactory. We are now standing eastwards amongst great quantities of wreckage. Cutter lowered to examine a lifeboat, but it is too smashed to tell anything, even the name is not visible. All round is splintered woodwork, cabin fittings, mahogany fronts of drawers, carvings, all wrenched away from their fastenings, deck chairs, and then more bodies. Some of these are fifteen miles distant from those picked up yesterday.
In seven days they found 306 bodies, far more than they had anticipated, and 116 of these were buried at sea because of lack of identification. All of the bodies were numbered, were cataloged by description and personal effects, and had tags attached to their toes. Only three of the musicians were found and, although their numbers are close together, suggesting they were found near each other, they would appear to have been picked up on three consecutive days—Hume on April 23, a day that Hamilton described as full of “rain and fog”; Clarke on April 24, which was “cold, wet, miserable and comfortless”; and Hartley on April 25. It was a harrowing job for the seamen. As Hamilton reflected, “Even the most hardened must reflect on the hopes and fears, the dismay and despair, of those whose nearest and dearest, support and pride, have been wrenched from them by this tragedy.”
Body number 193 was Jock Hume. He was judged to be around twenty-eight (actual age twenty-one); had light, curly hair; was five feet nine inches; and weighed 145 pounds. He’d been wearing a light raincoat, a purple muffler, and his bandsman’s suit. He appeared to have lost his socks and shoes and was wearing a silver watch. In his pockets were a cigarette case, an empty purse, a knife with a carved pearl handle, a mute, a brass African Royal Mail button, and an English lever watch. When these items were sent back to his parents, they were valued by the postal service as being worth $5 (Canadian).
Body number 202 was Fred Clarke. His estimated age was thirty-five (actual age twenty-eight) and he had black hair and no marks on his body. He was wearing a gray overcoat and gray muffler over his uniform. His socks were green, and he wore an initialed gold ring on one finger, a gold watch on his wrist, and a crucifix around his neck. In his pockets were a diamond pin, keys, a knife, a sovereign case, a pocketbook, a memo book, and eight shillings in cash.
Wallace Hartley was body 224. He looked to be twenty-five (actual age thirty-three), had brown hair, and was wearing a brown coat over his uniform. On his feet were green socks and black boots. On one of his fingers was a diamond solitaire ring. In his pockets were a gold fountain pen (initialed); a silver cigarette; a silver matchbox given to him by the staff at Collinson’s Café in Leeds; a nickel watch on a gold chain; a gold cigar holder; a collar stud; a pair of scissors; an insignia cut from an old uniform; German, English, American, and French coins; a key; the letter from his friend Bill; and a telegram sent to him on board the Titanic. The earliest reports specifically noted that he was found with “his music case strapped to his body” and that “this will be forwarded to the White Star Company” (Daily Sketch, May 3, 1912, and other papers). This item, however, which presumably contained his v
iolin, was never listed among the effects signed for by his father and its disappearance has long puzzled Titanic historians.
The items found on their bodies offer a tantalizing snapshot of the three musicians but raise as many questions as answers. Jock Hume’s purple muffler and light raincoat suggests someone more concerned with appearance than comfort and warmth, an impression that confirms what is already known about him. But was the African Royal Mail button taken from a previous uniform, and did it mean that he had also traveled to Africa? Was the mute from his violin or another instrument?
Were Fred Clarke’s notebooks connected with his work or were they personal journals? His mother signed for them, but no one in the family knows what happened to them. Tantalizingly someone wrote the word Communicate beneath the typewritten list of his effects and then wrote two names and addresses: Grechten Bechtel of Stapleton, New York, and Thomas Graham of Chryston, Glasgow. These must have been names found in the memo book that the medical examiner felt should be contacted. Grechten Bechtel was the maiden name of an American girl who by 1911 was married and living in New Brighton on the Wirral, but who later moved back to America. Was Clarke planning to visit her or stay with her family in Stapleton on Staten Island?
Wallace Hartley’s belongings indicate his senior position—plenty of gold, silver, and diamonds—but was the loose change his collection of tips for the night? The varieties of currencies suggest so, because, as far as we know, he had never traveled to France or Germany. The fact that he had almost exactly twice as much sterling as Clarke may indicate that they’d already carved up the evening’s earnings in accordance with the contract signed with Charlie Black—one portion to each bandsman and two to the leader. If this was so, the bandsmen could have made £2 a crossing, the bandleader £4, which, taken over a month, would far exceed their wages.
Hartley and Clarke were easy to identify because they had items bearing either their names or initials. Clarke had a business card with his old address in Lowther Street, Liverpool, scored through and his new address, 22 Tunstall Street, added in pen. Hume had no such clues and so a photograph was taken of him in his coffin and sent to the White Star Line for identification. On July 16, Harold Wingate of White Star in New York wrote to Nova Scotia’s deputy provincial secretary, Frederick F. Mathers, saying: “Our Southampton office has been able to identify no. 193 as John Law Hume a bandsman of the Titanic from the photograph. We expected this body to be identified as the uniform and effects indicated that it was one of the bandsmen.”1
Next of kin were given the choice of having their loved ones buried in Canada after the Mackay-Bennett arrived back on April 30 or having the body returned. A letter from the White Star Line auctioned in 2002 revealed that at least one of the passenger’s relatives was asked to pay £20 to ship a body back to England. The letter read in part:
Business card of Fred Clarke found on his body
We regret that we do not see our way to bring back home the bodies of those recovered free of expense, and in cases where it is desired for this to be done, it can only be carried out provided the body was in a fit state to be returned, and upon receiving a deposit of £20 on account of the expenses. The remains of those not returned to England we are arranging to have buried at Halifax, each in a separate grave, with a suitable headstone, and we hope this latter arrangement will commend itself to you.
It was said that White Star paid for Hartley’s body to be returned to Britain, but this may have been because his story was so exceptional. Possibly White Star didn’t charge for the Atlantic crossing, but Albion Hartley paid for the coffin, the embalming, and the transportation from Halifax to Boston. It’s hard to imagine that the Clarke and Hume families turned down the offer of the repatriation of their sons’ bodies for free. As it was, on May 3, John Frederick Preston Clarke was buried at Mount Olivet Catholic Cemetery after a service at St. Mary’s Catholic Church and on May 8, John Law Hume was buried at Fairview Cemetery, each of their graves marked by a simple granite stone with their name, date of death, and body number. No relative was present at either of the funerals or burials.
The arrival of Wallace Hartley’s body became a focal point of national grief. This young man not only represented all who had died on the Titanic, but also the values that the British feared were in decline. Here was someone, they thought, with a sense of duty, someone who had laid down his life for others. The fact that he exhibited all these traits while playing the tune of one of the country’s best-loved hymns was a point of national pride.
Hartley’s embalmed body was sent by train from Halifax to Boston and from there it was put on the White Star liner Arabic, which set sail on May 7. The Arabic was due to arrive in Liverpool on Friday, May 17, so Albion Harley arranged for the funeral to be held the next day at the Bethel Chapel in Colne with the burial to be in the family vault in Colne Cemetery, where his two young brothers had been interred. The coffin would be taken the sixty miles from Liverpool to Colne by road in a horse-drawn hearse.
The Arabic arrived at South Canada Dock on the morning of April 17. Albion waited in a nearby shed with the relatives of two other bereaved passengers to carry out the grim task of identifying his son from his discolored and bruised face, signing for the effects that had been saved in a white canvas bag, and walking with the undertakers as they took the large polished wood casket with brass mountings to the awaiting hearse and its two horses.
A reporter from the Liverpool Daily Post and Mercury wrote that Albion seemed “a pathetic figure … suffering from intense mental agony … as he signed the receipt for the delivery of the body his hands quivered with emotion … he walked away broken with grief.” Albion told the reporter that a friend of his who traveled regularly on the Lusitania had heard his son play “Nearer, My God, to Thee” on that ship several times. This seemed to console him. In his life’s defining moment, Wallace Hartley had behaved in a way that would bring pride to any Methodist Sunday school superintendent or choir leader.
The long slow journey of the hearse took ten hours, passing through the Lancashire towns of Preston, Blackburn, Accrington, and Burnley, before arriving in Colne during the early hours of Saturday morning. Away from the eyes of prying observers, the casket was taken into Bethel Chapel where Hartley’s musical career had started more than twenty-five years before, and was met by around twenty of the family’s relatives and friends. It was only when daylight came that Elizabeth Hartley, her three daughters, and Maria Robinson took their final look through the coffin’s small glass window at Hartley’s face. The Colne & Nelson Times described a scene filled with pathos. “Grouped around the coffin, from which they tore themselves away only by a great effort, they gazed steadfastly for several minutes. Then over the glass panel was screwed the strong coffin lid and human eye had seen the last of Wallace Hartley.”
The funeral service began at one o’clock, by which time the chapel designed to seat seven hundred was filled with one thousand people— family and friends on the ground level and others in the balcony. Colne itself was crammed with more people than had ever been in the town at any one time, lining the mile-and-a-quarter route from the chapel to the cemetery that the hearse and mourners would embark on at two o’clock. Badges, posters, and postcards had been selling on the streets for at least a week and, according to the Leeds Mercury, “The theme for street singers for several days has been ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee.’” Newspaper estimates put the size of the crowd at anywhere between thirty thousand and forty thousand.
Titanic memorial postcards
In the chapel Albion and Elizabeth sat with their daughters and Maria Robinson directly facing the coffin, which was on a draped catafalque. Screwed on its lid was a brass plaque bearing the words “Wallace H. Hartley, Died April 15, 1912, Aged 33 years. ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee.’” In front of the catafalque were piles of wreaths and flowers that had been placed there during the morning. Perhaps the most poignant was a floral cross of deep red roses given by Maria, which had the attach
ed message: “O teach me from my heart to say ‘Thy will be done.’”
The service began with Mendelssohn’s “O Rest in the Lord” played as an organ voluntary, followed by the Issac Watts’s hymn “Oh God Our Help in Ages Past,” one of the two hymns Wallace had cited as his favorites. During the singing of it, Albion appeared to be close to collapse. Then came a prayer, the hymn “Lead, Kindly Light,” and a message by the Independent Methodist preacher Thomas Worthington, a friend to the Hartley family whom Wallace had last met on the Mauretania in September 1911.
The gray-bearded Worthington gave an eloquent and deeply personal sermon. Captain Smith, he had read, had called on his men to “Be British,” but whereas there were many good things about being British, there was something even more inspiring about being Christian. Worthington continued:
From the bridge today I have a still more noble, more inspiring call to utter—“Be Christian”—and in this, too, I can associate our friend, Wallace Hartley. His sea faring, no doubt, had given him many experiences. There must have been many times when doubts would be raised as to whether nature or steam would prevail. Report gives an actual conversation on the point. What would he do in the face of wreck? Look for his lifebelt? That would be natural. Jump into number 1 lifeboat? Well, all that a man hath will he give for his life. But no! If report is correct—and there is every reason to believe it is—he said, in effect: “I should cling to me my old violin which has given so much pleasure to many, and often to me, and instead of playing to please or amuse or pass time I should play to inspire. Amid storm and wreck I should play “Nearer, My God, to Thee.”
And so it was. The unexpected happened, the unthinkable occurred. The ship that everyone thought could not sink is now two miles at the bottom of the Atlantic. But our friend kept his word. The inevitable command to get the boats ready in the middle of that dark but clear Sunday night, with the subsequent order “Women and children first” found those hands now stiff in death gliding along the strings of that beloved violin and guiding the companion stick, producing the tune that at once became articulate and interpreted the desires of many hearts as they were lifted to heaven. This was done until the waves claimed both him and his violin. Yes, it is brave to be British. It is both brave and noble to be Christian. In fact, it is easier to be British when we are Christian.