Monuments and memorials to the RMS Titanic victims exist in a number of places around the world associated with Titanic, notably in Belfast, Liverpool and Southampton in the United Kingdom; Halifax, Nova Scotia in Canada; and New York City and Washington, D.C. in the United States. The largest single contingent of victims came from Southampton, the home of most of the crew, which consequently has the greatest number of memorials. Titanic was built in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and had a "guarantee party" of engineers from shipbuilders Harland and Wolff aboard all of whom were lost in the disaster and are commemorated by a prominent memorial in the city. Other contingents of engineers aboard the ship came from the maritime cities of Liverpool in England and Glasgow in Scotland, which erected their own memorials. Several prominent victims, such as Titanic's captain, were commemorated individually. Elsewhere, in the United States and Australia, public memorials were erected to commemorate all the victims.
Wallace Hartley, the bandleader aboard Titanic, was buried in his home town Colne in Lancashire under a fine headstone engraved with the opening bars of the hymn Nearer, My God, to Thee. The townspeople also erected a monument to him on Albert Road. It was originally intended to be a commemorative drinking fountain until the memorial committee realised that might be inappropriate given that Hartley had drowned. It was therefore decided to erect a bronze bust of Hartley mounted on a plinth. Below the bust, sitting on cornices, are two caped female figures holding lyres in their hands. The original figures were stolen and have been replaced by plastic replicas.[1]
Glasgow
Titanic Engineers' Memorial in Glasgow
A memorial to thirty-six engineers aboard Titanic is located in the offices of the Scottish Opera at 39 Elmbank Crescent, Glasgow – formerly the headquarters of the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland, whose members funded the memorial. The memorial, designed by Kellock Brown, was unveiled on 15 April 1914. It consists of a marble plaque surmounted by two female nudes bearing a wreath.[2][3] The dedication states that the memorial's purpose is:
To keep alive the memory of the engineers of the Titanic who all died at their duty on the fifteenth day of April 1912 when the ship was lost in mid-Atlantic. This tablet was erected by the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland.[3]
The Glasgow Titanic Engineers' memorial does not include the names of William Duffy (Chief Engineer's Clerk), or of Thomas Andrews (Managing Director of Harland and Wolff, principal designer of the Titanic and leader of the commissioning team on board), both of whom are named on the Titanic Engineers' Memorial, Southampton.
Godalming
The body of Titanic's Senior Wireless Operator, Jack Phillips, was never recovered but he is commemorated by a headstone in the shape of an iceberg in the Old Cemetery of Godalming in Surrey. A cloister and garden was built in his memory adjoining the town's Church of St Peter and St Paul.[4] It was dedicated on 15 April 1914 and provided with a fountain donated by the Postal Telegraph Clerks' Association.[5] The inscription reads:
This Cloister is Built in Memory of John George Phillips A Native of This Town Chief Wireless Telegraphist of The Ill-Fated SS Titanic He Died at His Post When the Vessel Foundered in Mid-Atlantic On the 15th Day of April 1912[6]
The cloister has been altered over the years in response to vandalism and neglect but was renovated in 1993. Phillips is also commemorated in nearby Farncombe, his home village, where a brass tablet was erected in the Church of St. John the Evangelist.[6]
Lichfield
Statue of Captain Edward Smith, Lichfield
Titanic's captain Edward Smith is commemorated by a statue in Beacon Park, Lichfield – a town with which he had absolutely no connection, as he had been born in Hanley, Staffordshire and lived in Southampton. Officially the decision was taken because Lichfield was "about half-way between Liverpool and London [and] would be convenient alike to British and American subscribers [to the memorial's costs]", and also because it was the cathedral city of the diocese in which the captain had been born. Unofficially it may also have been due to reticence on the part of Hanley's authorities to further commemorate someone who bore a major burden of responsibility for the disaster.[5] Smith had, in any case, already been commemorated in Hanley's Town Hall with a plaque reading:
This tablet is dedicated to the memory of Commander [sic] Edward John Smith RD, RNR. Born in Hanley, 27th Jany 1850, died at sea, 15th April 1912. Be British. Whilst in command of the White Star SS Titanic that great ship struck an iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean during the night and speedily sank with nearly all who were on board. Captain Smith having done all man could do for the safety of passengers and crew remained at his post on the sinking ship until the end. His last message to the crew was "Be British."[7]
The plaque was removed in 1961, given to a local school and then returned to the Town Hall but remounted in the interior of the building in 1978, illustrating Hanley's continued ambivalence over its most famous local son.[8]
The statue of Smith in Lichfield was sculpted by Kathleen Scott, the widow of the Antarctic explorer Robert Falcon Scott.[4] It was unveiled by his daughter, Helen Melville Smith, on 29 July 1914.[9] It attracted some controversy as Smith had been heavily criticised by the British inquiry into the disaster. Several prominent citizens signed a petition opposing the statue but it was rejected, and the unveiling went ahead as planned. However, the placement of the statue suggests that the city council was not entirely comfortable with it; it is not in a particularly visible place, nor is it readily accessible.[10] Most notably, the dedication does not even mention Titanic, instead commemorating Smith for:
Bequeathing to his countrymen the Memory and Example of A Great Heart, A Brave Life, and A Heroic Death.[11]
After the wreck of the Titanic was found in 1985 the former ambivalence of both Lichfield and Hanley disappeared as the statue suddenly became a tourist attraction. The words "Captain Smith was Captain of the Titanic" were added to its plinth and both Hanley and Stoke-on-Trent made requests for the statue to be moved to their towns. Lichfield refused, telling Stoke that Lichfield "had been responsible for cleaning the pigeon droppings off the statue for the past seventy years."[12]
A small Titanic Memorial Garden is located in the grounds of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. It was opened in April 1995 by Edith Haisman, at the time one of the oldest living survivors of the disaster.[15] Another memorial plaque hangs in the Institute of Marine Engineers headquarters at 80 Coleman Street, listing thirty-eight names. The memorial is topped by a figure of Triton driving a team of four polar bears. On either side are sculpted figures similar to those on the Engineers' Memorial in Southampton.[2]
Most of the victims of the disaster came from the United Kingdom. No town was harder hit than Southampton; of the crew's 918 members, only 213 survived[16] and 539 of those who perished came from Southampton.[17] Many local churches and graveyards have plaques and small memorials to those who died.[18] A year after the disaster, in April 1913, a memorial to the ship's musicians was unveiled but was destroyed by German bombing in World War II. It has since been replaced by a replica situated on the corner of Cumberland Place and London Road.[19]
The following April, the Titanic Engineers' Memorial was dedicated in front of 100,000 people.[19] On 27 July 1915, a small memorial fountain made of Portland stone commemorating all of the lost crew members was unveiled on Southampton Common. It became the target of vandalism and was moved into the ruined Holyrood Church in 1972.[20] A memorial to the British postal staff aboard Titanic was located in the Southampton Docks Post Office, then moved to the High Street Post Office, and is now on display outside the Council Chambers at the City's Guildhall.
The ship's mainly Italian and French restaurant workers and their boss, Luigi Gatti, all perished in the disaster. They are commemorated by the Gatti Memorial in St Joseph's Church.[4]
Ireland
Ireland, which was part of the United Kingdom at the time of the sinking, had four principal connections with Titanic; she had been built in Belfast, a number of her engineers, designers and crewmen were from northern Ireland, many of her passengers (especially in Third Class) were from southern Ireland and her last port of call was Queenstown (now Cobh) on the south coast of Ireland.
The Titanic Memorial in Belfast was unveiled on 26 June 1920 to commemorate twenty-two men from the city who had died in the disaster. Designed by Sir Thomas Brock RA, it was carved from Carrara marble and depicts a personification of Death holding a laurel wreath over the head of a drowned sailor.[21]
The Irish Free State (now the Republic of Ireland) had little interest in commemorating the disaster and it was not until 1998 that a Titanic memorial was erected in Cobh. It consists of a bas-relief depicting third-class passenger Margaret Rice and her five sons, all of whom died in the sinking, and bears the dedication: "Commemorating RMS Titanic and her last port of call on her maiden and final voyage, April 12, 1912".[22][19] The town plans to install a memorial garden to mark the centenary of the ship's sinking.[23]
Waterford: There is a memorial in the seaside Village of Bunmahon to local man Frank Dewan Who was lost while traveling as a Third class passenger to visit his son in Montana. The memorial is located on the main coast road between Dungarvan and Tramore.
United States
Titanic Memorial, Washington D.C.
The first monument ever erected in memory of the Titanic in America, and possibly the world, was built in the small town of Libertytown, Maryland at St. Peter the Apostle Catholic Church. The Church at the time was beautifying their church cemetery by building a calvary crucifixion scene. When news of the disaster reached Libertytown, the monument was dedicated to the victims of the Titanic on April 19, 1912, just one day after the first reports that the ship had sunk.[24]
An inscribed plaque in the Boston Symphony Hall commemorates Titanic's musicians with the dedication: "In memory of the devoted musicians who were drowned still playing as the Titanic went down, 15 April 1912".[2]
Straus Park in the Upper West Side district of Morningside Heights commemorates Isidor Straus and his wife Ida, who both died in the disaster. The centrepiece of the park is the Isidor and Ida Straus Memorial, erected in 1915 to commemorate the couple. Its dedication reads: "Erected by voluntary contributions from many fellow citizens and accepted for the City of New York by Mayor John Purroy Mitchel and Cabot Ward, Commissioner of Parks. AD MCMXV."[19]
The Titanic Memorial in Washington, D.C. stands next to the Washington Channel near Fort Lesley J. McNair. It stands 13 feet (4.0m) high and depicts a male figure with arms outstretched. The memorial was unveiled on 26 May 1931 by Helen Herron Taft, the widow of President William Howard Taft, who held office at the time of the disaster and whose military aide Major Archibald Butt died in the sinking.[26] It originally stood in Rock Creek Park before being moved to its current site on P Street SW in 1968.[4]
The 106 passengers on the Titanic who were heading to Pennsylvania are memorialized on a park bench near Audubon, Pennsylvania. This bench is located along the Schuylkill River Trail where it is met by the Pawlings Road Trailhead. [27]
Australia
The SS Titanic Memorial Bandstand, Ballarat
Two memorials to Titanic's musicians were erected in Australia. The local bandsmen of the outback mining town of Broken Hill, New South Wales erected the Titanic Musicians' Memorial, dedicated on 21 December 1913 and funded by the Amalgamated Miners Association Band. Its dedication declares that it was "Erected by the Citizens of Broken Hill as a memorial to the heroic bandsmen of the steamship Titanic who, playing to the end, calmly faced certain death whilst women, children and their fellow-men were being rescued from the wreck of that ill-fated vessel off the coast of Newfoundland on the 15th April 1912".[28][29]
Another memorial dedicated to their memory was The SS Titanic Memorial Bandstand erected in 1915 in Ballarat, Victoria. Designed by George Clegg and funded by the Victorian Band Association at a cost of £150, it stands in the Sturt Street Gardens in front of the Mechanics Institute. The structure is an unusual example of Edwardian bandstand design with multiple oriental-style roofs.[30][31]
Canada
Most of the bodies recovered after the disaster were buried in Halifax, Nova Scotia. 150 are buried in three cemeteries: Fairview, with 121, Mount Olivet, with nineteen, and Baron de Hirsch, with ten.[32] A simple headstone of black granite marks most graves, recording only the victim's name (if known) or the number of the body if the name was not known, and the date 15 April 1912. Exception were made if friends or relatives wanted to erect a more elaborate headstone at their own expense; one such example is that of the grave of the Titanic's chief steward, Ernest Freeman, whose headstone was donated by the White Star Line's chairman J. Bruce Ismay. The graves are still maintained under a trust established by the White Star Line.[33]
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RMS Olympic was a British ocean liner and the lead ship of the White Star Line's trio of Olympic-class liners. Unlike the other ships in the class, Olympic had a long career spanning 24 years from 1911 to 1935. This included service as a troopship during the First World War, which gained her the nickname "Old Reliable". She returned to civilian service after the war, and served successfully as an ocean liner throughout the 1920s and into the first half of the 1930s, although increased competition, and the slump in trade during the Great Depression after 1930, made her operation increasingly unprofitable.
Edward John Smith was a British naval officer. He served as master of numerous White Star Line vessels. He was the captain of the RMS Titanic, and perished when the ship sank on its maiden voyage.
Wallace Henry Hartley was an English violinist and bandleader on the RMS Titanic on its maiden voyage. He became famous for leading the eight-member band as the ship sank on 15 April 1912. He died in the sinking.
Beacon Park is a public park in the centre of the city of Lichfield, Staffordshire, in the United Kingdom. The park was created in 1859 when the Museum Gardens were laid out adjacent to the newly built Free Museum and Library. The park has since been extended in stages and now forms 69 acres (28 ha) of open parkland in the city centre. The park is located in the northwest of the city centre and to the west of the Cathedral Close across the road from the Garden of Remembrance.
Commander Harold Godfrey Lowe RD, RNR was the fifth officer of the RMS Titanic.
The RMS Titanic has played a prominent role in popular culture since her sinking in 1912, with the loss of over 1,500 of the 2,200 lives on board. The disaster and the Titanic herself have been objects of public fascination for many years. They have inspired numerous books, plays, films, songs, poems, and works of art. The story has been interpreted in many overlapping ways, including as a symbol of technological hubris, as basis for fail-safe improvements, as a classic disaster tale, as an indictment of the class divisions of the time, and as romantic tragedies with personal heroism. It has inspired many moral, social and political metaphors and is regularly invoked as a cautionary tale of the limitations of modernity and ambition.
The RMS Titanic sank in the early morning hours of 15 April 1912 in the North Atlantic Ocean, four days into the ship's maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City. The largest ocean liner in service at the time, Titanic had an estimated 2,224 people on board when she struck an iceberg at around 23:40 on Sunday, 14 April 1912. Her sinking two hours and forty minutes later at 02:20 on Monday, 15 April, resulted in the deaths of more than 1,500 people, making it one of the deadliest peacetime marine disasters in history.
The crew of the RMS Titanic were among the estimated 2,208 people who sailed on the maiden voyage of the second of the White Star Line's Olympic class ocean sea liners, from Southampton, England to New York City in the US. Halfway through the voyage, the ship struck an iceberg and sank in the early morning of 15 April 1912, resulting in the deaths of over 1,500 people, including approximately 688 crew members.
RMS Titanic was a British passenger liner operated by the White Star Line that sank in the North Atlantic Ocean in the early morning hours of 15 April 1912, after striking an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City. Of the estimated 2,224 passengers and crew aboard, more than 1,500 died, making the sinking one of modern history's deadliest peacetime commercial marine disasters. RMS Titanic was the largest ship afloat at the time she entered service and was the second of three Olympic-class ocean liners operated by the White Star Line. She was built by the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast. Thomas Andrews, chief naval architect of the shipyard at the time, died in the disaster.
The Titanic Memorial in Belfast was erected to commemorate the lives lost in the sinking of the RMS Titanic on 15 April 1912. It was funded by contributions from the public, shipyard workers, and victims' families, and was dedicated in June 1920. It sits on Donegall Square in central Belfast in the grounds of Belfast City Hall.
The Memorial to the Engine Room Heroes of the Titanic is a granite monument located on St. Nicholas Place, at the Pier Head, in Liverpool, England. The city of Liverpool is strongly associated with the ill-fated liner that sank on 15 April 1912, after striking an iceberg in the North Atlantic with the loss of some 1,517 lives. The RMS Titanic was owned by White Star Line which was founded in Liverpool in 1840. Liverpool was also the port of registry of the liner with the words 'Titanic, Liverpool' visible on the stern of the ship. The memorial on Liverpool's waterfront is dedicated to the 244 engineers who lost their lives in the disaster as they remained in the ship supplying the stricken liner with electricity and other amenities for as long as possible. The monument is notable as the first monument in the United Kingdom to depict the working man.
The Titanic Engineers' Memorial is a memorial in East (Andrews) Park, Southampton, United Kingdom, to the engineers who died in the Titanic disaster on 15 April 1912. The bronze and granite memorial was originally unveiled by Sir Archibald Denny, president of the Institute of Marine Engineers on 22 April 1914. The event was attended by an estimated 100,000 Southampton residents.
The TitanicMusicians' Memorial is a memorial in Southampton, United Kingdom, to the musicians who died in the RMS Titanic disaster on 15 April 1912. The original Titanic Musicians' Memorial was unveiled by the Mayor of Southampton, H Bowyer on 19 April 1913, and was located in the old Southampton library. This library along with the memorial were destroyed during World War II. A replica was erected in 1990. The plaque features a musical inscription, the opening bars of the 19th century hymn, 'Nearer, My God, to Thee' by Sarah Flower Adams, carvings showing a grieving woman and an iceberg, and an inscription with the names of the musicians on the Titanic, including bandleader Wallace Hartley, all of whom died.
The sinking of the RMS Titanic on April 14, 1912 resulted in an inquiry by the United States Senate. Chaired by Senator William Alden Smith, the inquiry was a subcommittee of the Senate's Commerce Committee. The hearings began in New York on April 19, 1912, later moving to Washington, D.C., concluding on May 25, 1912 with a return visit to New York.
The sinking of the RMS Titanic on 15 April 1912 resulted in an inquiry by the British Wreck Commissioner on behalf of the British Board of Trade. The inquiry was overseen by High Court judge Lord Mersey, and was held in London from 2 May to 3 July 1912. The hearings took place mainly at the London Scottish Drill Hall, at 59 Buckingham Gate, London SW1.
The musicians of the RMS Titanic all perished when the ship sank in 1912. They played music, intending to calm the passengers, for as long as they possibly could, and all went down with the ship. All were recognized for their heroism.
RMS Titanic has a rich legacy in films, books, memorials and museums.
The London Troops War Memorial, located in front of the Royal Exchange in the City of London, commemorates the men of London who fought in World War I and World War II.
The Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst Memorial is a memorial in London to Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughter Christabel, two of the foremost British suffragettes. It stands at the entrance to Victoria Tower Gardens, south of Victoria Tower at the southwest corner of the Palace of Westminster. Its main feature is a bronze statue of Emmeline Pankhurst by Arthur George Walker, unveiled in 1930. In 1958 the statue was relocated to its current site and the bronze reliefs commemorating Christabel Pankhurst were added.
Saving The Titanic, aired in Germany as Die Helden der Titanic, is 2012 Irish-German television docudrama directed by Maurice Sweeney, and written by Colin Herber-Percy and Lyall Watson. Unlike most films and series depicting the ship's passengers and senior crew, Saving the Titanic dramatizes the engineers and the boiler room crew who kept the furnaces and generators running as the Titanic sank, facilitating the survival of others.
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