Irish Aboard Titanic (49 page)

For Dr O'Loughlin it appears that the most valuable thing at this critical hour was a tot of whiskey. He was seen rummaging below decks close to the end by baker John Joughin who himself was after the hard stuff, and felt O'Loughlin was doing likewise.

O'Loughlin met stewardess Mary Sloan during the night. She later described him as ‘a fine old man, and a great favourite with all on board'. Some survivors talk of O'Loughlin soothing the panicked and helping all he could, directing women to the boats. Irene Harris, the widow of theatre impresario Henry B. Harris, claimed she saw the doctor when she crossed with her husband from starboard to port, walking through the bridge area normally forbidden to passengers.

The Captain was standing with Major Archibald Butt and the little doctor. I saw the clock. I can still see it with its hands pointing to 2.20. The captain looked amazed when he saw me: ‘My God, woman, why aren't you in a lifeboat?' I kept repeating, ‘I won't leave my husband. I won't leave my husband.' The little doctor said, ‘Isn't she a brick?' to which the Captain replied: ‘She's a little fool.'

(
Liberty Magazine,
23 April 1932)

Finally O'Loughlin is seen with his medical colleague John Edward Simpson from Belfast, his fellow countryman Purser Hugh McElroy, and his assistant purser, standing on deck in an apparently relaxed and resigned mood. Some reports say O'Loughlin was casually swinging a lifejacket. ‘I don't think I'll need to put this on,' he said. His desired burial at sea was only minutes away. The lifejacket, he had decided, had no value. Simpson then made a joke to Second Officer Charles Lightoller, who was feverishly working at filling the last boat and who had taken off his coat. He asked if he was too warm in the freezing conditions. It seems to have lightened the mood. Lightoller came over and the senior crewmembers all shook hands and said goodbye.

‘As far as we can ascertain from the available accounts of the disaster,' a Fr Walsh told O'Loughlin's Requiem Mass at the University Church in St Stephen's Green in May 1912, ‘his characteristic gentleness and philanthropy forsook him not in that last supreme crisis.'

He loved the sea. And the sea took him to her bosom.

Tralee man lost

Dr. Wm. F. N. O'Loughlin, the senior surgeon of the
Titanic
, and who went down with that great steamer on the morning of the 15th inst., was born in Tralee.

He was the second son of the late Mr William O'Loughlin, and some of the older inhabitants may (says the Kerry Post) remember his grandfather, the late Mr Benjamin Mathews, of Nelson Street, Tralee.

(
Limerick Chronicle
, 25 April 1912)

During a talk with me in the South Western Hotel he did tell me that he was tired at this time of life to be changing from one ship to another. When he mentioned this to Captain Smith the latter chided him for being lazy and told him to pack up and come with him. So fate decreed that Billy should go on the
Titanic
and I to the Olympic.

(Dr J. C. H. Beaumont,
S
hips and People
, 1927)

Dr O'Loughlin was 62 years old and was born in Naase [
sic
], County Kerry. He was on the Britannic in 1887 when she rammed the steamship
Adriatic.

(
Irish American
, 27 April 1912)

Dr O'Loughlin dined alone with the Chairman and Managing Director of the White Star Line, J. Bruce Ismay, on the night the
Titanic
sank. He mentioned to Ismay that the vessel had ‘turned the corner', meaning it had changed course from a south-westerly track to steer west and slightly north towards New York. Ismay realised the course would put them directly headed towards field ice the
Titanic
had been warned about. The two men might even have discussed it. But Ismay presumably did not tell the White Star's surgeon of forty years that he had in his pocket an ice warning from another White Star ship, the
Baltic,
which had been wordlessly handed to him just before lunch by Captain Smith.

Michael Rogers (24) Lost

Steward.

From: Aughrim Street, Dublin.

13 Green Hill Avenue, Winchester.

The 1911 census shows Michael Rogers residing at the same address he gave in the
Titanic
, when signing on as ‘M. Rogers'. Both the ship's manifest and the census confirm him to be from Dublin, the latter showing his occupation as ‘steward at sea'.

Rogers had been staying with Dublin-born Ann Harris, her husband Tom (a night-watchman in a prison) and their five children. He was engaged to one of the Harris daughters. Son Edward Harris, 18, was a pantryman on the
Titanic
and also died. Michael had previously served on the
Olympic
and the
Adriatic
, and was reported as ‘steward to the Marconi department of the
Titanic
'.

Kate Walsh (32) Lost

Stewardess.

From: Clonmel, County Tipperary.

57 Church Road, Woolston, Southampton.

Kate Walsh, formerly living in College Street, Clonmel, and afterwards married to a man named Roche, at one time storekeeper in Clonmel Asylum.

(
Clonmel Chronicle
, 19 April 1912)

I had just climbed into my berth when a stewardess came in. She was a sweet woman who had been very kind to me. I take this opportunity to thank her, for I shall never see her again. She went down with the
Titanic.

‘Do you know where we are?' she said pleasantly. ‘We are in what is called the Devil's Hole.'

‘What does that mean?' I asked.

‘That is a dangerous part of the ocean,' she answered. ‘Many accidents have happened near there. They say that icebergs drift down as far as this. It's getting to be very cold on deck, so perhaps there is ice around us now.' She left the cabin and I soon dropped off to sleep, her talk of icebergs had not frightened me, but it shows that the crew were awake to the danger.

(Charlotte Collyer,
Semi Monthly Magazine
,
May 1912)

Kay Walsh was the only one out of eighteen stewardesses to die in the disaster. She appears to have been assigned to Second Class.

Second-Class passenger Selina Rogers remembered: ‘We had a very nice stewardess and steward whose names were Miss Walsh and Mr Petty. I was feeling very sick. The stewardess was very kind and brought me a glass of milk.'

(
Titanic Voices
, 1997, Hyslop, Forsyth & Jemima)

James B. Williamson (36) Lost

Postal Sorter, transatlantic post office.

From: Botanic Road, Dublin.

An extra-large postcard of the
Titanic
sent by James Williamson to his girlfriend just before the ship sailed fetched a hammer price of £11,500 in September 2002. The souvenir, known as a bookpost, was intended as a token of affection but instead became a symbol of wretched hopes. It proved especially valuable at auction because Williamson worked in the RMS
Titanic
's transatlantic post office and the card carries the vessel's unique No. 7 postmark.

Williamson was from Botanic Road, Drumcondra, Dublin, and had just transferred to his post with five other sea post officers, all of whom were lost despite their heroic efforts to save the flooded mails. He met the young English beauty Gladys Copeland through her father, who operated the Queensland Hotel in Southampton. Gladys had promised him a kiss if he would provide her with a
Titanic
token before he sailed. Williamson wrote on the card:
‘George wanted me to wait last night for you to fulfil your promise. This is a souvenir of Titanic
's
maiden voyage.'
He never collected on the pledge, but the postal sorter had unwittingly just contributed to philatelic history himself.

The mailroom on the
Titanic
was on the starboard side of the Orlop deck, forward of boiler room six, and was one of the first places flooded. The water roared in and the shocked officials suddenly realised they had to get out. Heroically, they lugged large sacks stuffed with some of the ship's 500,000-plus pieces of mail up the ladder to the next level, F deck, where the post office proper was. Struggling through knee-level water, they tried to save registered mail first. But there was no going back for any more. From the deck above, they watched in alarm as water below began swallowing 3,418 mail bags.

Ten minutes after the collision, Fourth Officer Joseph Boxhall was at the post office, learning from John Jago Smith the grim severity of the problem. There were five officials of the sea post office on board the vessel, three American and two from the British side. Not one was saved.

Another Dublin man engaged on the
Titanic
is a postal official – Mr J. Williamson – who up to three years ago was employed as a sorter in the Dublin GPO. He was subsequently transferred to the Southampton GPO.

(
Irish Independent,
17 April 1912)

The 1901 census confirms that Williamson was a sorter at the GPO in Dublin, which was to become the centrepiece of the Easter Rising just four years after the
Titanic
sank. He was then living at 2 Downham Villas on the northside of the city, the only son (among four daughters) of his Scots Presbyterian mother, a widow.

Postal clerks all drowned

Reuter's Cablegram Washington, Saturday

Of the five postal clerks employed on the
Titanic
, two were from the other side, namely respectively E. D. Williamson (Dublin) and Jago Smith. According to official advices received from the Postmaster-General here, all five completely disregarded their own safety when the vessel struck, and began to carry 200 sacks of registered mail to the upper deck, thinking they might be saved. As the situation became more desperate, they appealed to the stewards to assist them, and continued their work to the last. Every one of them was lost.

(
Irish Independent
, 22 April 1912)

Irish postal official

In reference to the postal official, Mr James B. Williamson, it should have been stated that he was unmarried, and that his widowed mother and sisters live at Botanic road, Glasnevin, Dublin.

(
The Irish Times,
18 April 1912)

It appears that Fr Francis Browne, the renowned photographer of the
Titanic,
met Williamson. He wrote that as he passed down the gangplank in Cobh to leave the liner – with mailbags being taken on board – he encountered Purser McElroy ‘and Mr Nicholson, head of the mail department'. The only Nicholson on board was a passenger, and the five postal officials were named March, Gwinn, Woody, Smith – and Williamson. Fr Browne, not yet a priest, wrote in the 1912 edition of the school annual
The Belvederian
that he said to the pair: ‘Goodbye. I will give you copies of my photos when you come again. Pleasant voyage.'

He continued: ‘And so they went. They never came back, one dying at his post far down in the heart of the ship as he strove to save the more precious portion of his charge, the other calmly facing death as he strove to reassure the terror-stricken, and to render up the jewels given to his keeping.'

The
Irish Independent,
printing a picture of Williamson on 8 May 1912, also referred to his being ‘in charge of the mails on the
Titanic
', and to his mother receiving a handwritten letter of sympathy from the Lord Lieutenant, the Earl of Aberdeen:

Viceroy and Dublin victim

His Excellency the Lord Lieutenant has written an autograph letter to Mrs Williamson, Botanic road, Dublin, mother of Mr J. B. Williamson, who was one of those in charge of the mails on the
Titanic
and who perished in the disaster, expressing deep sympathy on behalf of Lady Aberdeen and himself.

‘It is a matter of touching interest,' said his Excellency, ‘to learn that as a mark of special confidence and approval, your son was selected for duty on the
Titanic
and that you have now received testimony that your son, after having, in conjunction with his brave colleagues, made every effort for the safety of the mails, devoted himself to the assistance of the women and children.

‘And so his name is securely placed in the illustrious and imperishable roll of fame for those, who, under the supreme test of an appalling experience, manifested calmness, fortitude and unselfish care for others, thus bequeathing lasting solace for sorrowing friends, and an inspiring example to mankind.'

(Irish Independent
, 6 May 1912)

All ranks of the Southampton postal staff attended a memorial service at St Peter's church yesterday in memory of their colleagues, Messrs Smith and Williamson, of the Sea Post Service, who went down with the
Titanic
.

(
Daily Sketch
, 6 May 1912)

WILLIAMSON – 15 April 1912, lost at sea in SS
Titanic,
James Bertram Williamson, postal official, Southampton, only surviving son of Eleanor G. Williamson, 11 Botanic Road, Dublin, and the late David Wallace Williamson; deeply mourned by his sorrowing mother and sisters.

(Cork Constitution
, 25 April 1912)

The late Mr Williamson

A sympathetic reference to the late Mr J. B. Williamson, who was employed in the post office on the
Titanic
, appears in the
Irish Postal and Telegraph Guardian.

Mr Williamson began his career in Dublin eighteen years ago. His ambition was to get on the sea post office staff, and with this end in view he obtained a transfer to Southampton and his wishes were granted.

He was in Dublin last March on a few weeks' leave, and spoke enthusiastically of his work and adventures. Poor Williamson died at his post. It will be remembered that one of the officers of the
Titanic
stated that when he visited the mailroom, whose floor was covered with water, he found the clerks removing the registered portion of the mail to drier surroundings.