Titanic Lifeboat No. 6 was a lifeboat from the steamship Titanic. It was the second boat launched to sea, over an hour and a half after the liner collided with an iceberg and began sinking on 14 April 1912. With a capacity of 65 people, it was launched with about 24 aboard. [1]
Boat No. 6 was one of fourteen clinker-built lifeboats and was located on the port side of the Titanic. These lifeboats on the ship had a capacity of 65. [2]
Boat No. 6 was the second lifeboat launched from the Titanic at 12:55 a.m., well over an hour and a half after the liner collided with an iceberg and began sinking on 14 April 1912. [3] The lifeboat had a capacity of 65 people, but was launched with about 24 aboard. [1] Second Officer Charles Lightoller, in charge of the evacuation effort on the ship's port side, lowered the lifeboat with the assistance of Captain Smith himself. [4] [5] The passengers included American socialite Margaret "Molly" Brown, as well as British lawyer Elsie Edith Bowerman and her mother Edith, American author Helen Churchill Candee, and Eloise Hughes Smith. [6] Crewmen in charge of the lifeboat were quartermaster Robert Hichens (put in command of the vessel) and lookout Frederick Fleet, who was ordered on board by officer Lightoller, who put him in charge of the oars. [7] Other two crew members were also rescued on Boat 6: Ruth Harwood Bowker and Mabel Elvina Martin, the two female cashiers of the à la carte Restaurant Staff. [8] [9] As Boat 6 was lowered to the sea, the women in the boat expressed concern at having only two men (Hichens and Fleet) in charge. [10] The women's pleas forced Lightoller to look for another oarsman. In the absence of any crew member nearby, Canadian major Arthur Godfrey Peuchen, a First Class passenger who was a member of the Royal Canadian Yacht Club, volunteered to join the boat and assist with his sailing knowledge. Peuchen, who got to the lifeboat shinnying down the falls (ropes), was the only male adult passenger whom Lightoller permitted to board a boat. [11]
According to quartermaster Hichens, who testified under oath before the United States Senate Inquiry, Captain Smith and officer Lightoller ordered him to row to a light seen in the horizon of the port bow (which they thought was a schooner), to drop off the passengers of the lifeboat and return to the Titanic. [12] Hichens' behavior onboard the boat was the subject of controversy, [13] both during the night and in the aftermath. Canadian major Peuchen and American passenger Smith accused Hichens of being drunk. [14] Hichens, who remained all night at the rudder, was also accused of constantly berating those in charge of the oars (Peuchen and lookout Fleet). [15] More tension ensued between Hichens and the rest of the occupants of the boat, with several of them later accusing him of refusing to go back to pick survivors from the water, who reported that Hichens said that there was no point in going back, expressing that they would only find "stiffs"; a term which Hichens later denied having used. [12]
After the sinking and throughout the night, Hichens had strong arguments with Margaret Brown, [13] who first asked him to let the women row in order to keep them all warm. When Hichens ordered her against passing the oars, Brown ignored him. Hichens tried to physically stop her, prompting a strong reaction from Brown. At one point, Hichens said that he feared being thrown overboard if they returned for survivors; Brown rose from her seat and said that she would do it herself. [16] [17] The occupants of the boat backed Brown, with a stoker (who had been transferred from lifeboat #16) reprimanding Hichens for being disrespectful to a woman. [16] Helen Churchill Candee assisted Brown with the oars, despite having her ankle injured due to a fall during the escape from the ship. [18] [19] Hichens remained at the rudder, swearing at the boat's passengers until being rescued by the Carpathia at around 8:00 am, being the last of Titanic lifeboats to reach the Carpathia. [20]
The following list contains confirmed original occupants of Lifeboat 6. An unknown stoker was later transferred from lifeboat #16, and some survivors indicated that there was an injured boy whom Captain Smith himself ordered to be let on board. [6]
The Titanic had three classes (First, Second, and Third), aside from the crew. No Second-Class passenger boarded Boat No. 6, and no color box is referenced for this article. [21]
First Class passenger
Third Class passenger
Crew member
| Name | Age | Class/Dept | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Barber, Miss Ellen Mary | 26 | First Class | Personal maid of Mr. and Mrs. Cavendish. [22] |
| Baxter, Mrs. Hélène | 50 | First Class | Canadian woman. Saved along her daughter Mary Hélène Douglas. [23] |
| Bowerman, Miss Elsie Edith | 32 | First Class | British woman, accompanied by her mother Edith, who was also onboard lifeboat 6. Bowerman and her mother embarked on the Titanic to make a tour of the United States and Canada. [24] |
| Bowker, Miss Ruth Harwood | 31 | Restaurant Staff | Cashier. One of two female staff members of the à la carte restaurant, the other being Miss Martin, who also escaped on board Boat 6. [8] |
| Brown, Mrs Margaret | 44 | First Class | American socialite. Later known as the Unsinkable Molly. [25] |
| Candee, Mrs. Helen Churchill | 52 | First Class | American author. |
| Cavendish, Mrs. Julia Florence | 25 | First Class | American woman. She was saved along her maid, Miss Barber. [22] |
| Chibnall, Mrs. Edith Martha Bowerman | 48 | First Class | Saved along her daughter Elsie; both were on a tour to the United States and Canada. [24] |
| Douglas, Mrs. Mary Hélène | 27 | First Class | Canadian woman, saved along her mother Hélène Baxter. [23] |
| Fleet, Mr. Frederick | 24 | Deck | Lookout. Ordered to man the oars by Second Officer Lightoller. Fleet was the lookout who first sighted the iceberg. [26] [27] |
| Hichens, Mr. Robert | 29 | Deck | Quartermaster. Put in charge of the lifeboat. Hichens was at the Titanic's helm at the moment of the collision with the iceberg. [28] |
| Icard, Miss Rose Amélie | 39 | First Class | French woman. [29] |
| Martin, Miss Mabel Elvina | 20 | Restaurant Staff | Cashier. One of the two female à la carte restaurant crew members, the other being Miss Bowker, who also escaped on board Boat 6. [9] |
| Meyer, Mrs. Leila | 25 | First Class | American woman. Her husband perished. [30] |
| Newell, Miss Marjorie Anne | 23 | First Class | American woman. Last surviving First Class passenger when she died in June 1992. [31] |
| Peuchen, Major Arthur Godfrey | 52 | First Class | Canadian major. Member of the Royal Canadian Yacht Club. [11] |
| Rothschild, Mrs. Elizabeth Jane Anne | 54 | First Class | American woman, saved along her Pomeranian dog, one of three dogs to survive the sinking. [32] |
| Smith, Mrs. Mary Eloise | 18 | First Class | American woman. Her husband perished. |
| Stone, Mrs. Martha Evelyn | 61 | First Class | American woman. [33] |
| Zenni, Mr. Philip | 25 | Third Class | Syrian-born man who allegedly sneaked onto lifeboat 6 after being repeteadly turned away. Known as "Mr. Titanic" in his later years in the Dayton, Ohio area. [34] |
Boat 6 is featured in James Cameron's 1997 film Titanic during the early stages of the ship's evacuation. It includes Brown (Kathy Bates) as the newly-made friend of Ruth DeWitt Bukater (Frances Fisher), a fictional character who is Rose's (Kate Winslet) mother. Rose is supposed to join her mother on Boat 6, but a classist comment made by her fiancée Cal Hockley (Billy Zane) makes her change her mind and remain on the ship to look for Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio). [35] [36]
In a deleted scene of the 1997 film, quartermaster Robert Hichens (Paul Brightwell) is shown seated at the rudder in Lifeboat No. 6 when Captain Smith (Bernard Hill), Chief Officer Henry Wilde (Mark Lindsay Chapman) and Thomas Andrews (Victor Garber) use a megaphone to call at Boat 6, ordering Hichens to return to the ship. Margaret Brown (Kathy Bates) attempts to convince the boat's occupants to return, but a hostile Hichens tells her that he is in charge of the lifeboat and that "It's our lives now, not theirs." [36] [25] [13]
In another featured scene of the same film, Brown says that there is "plenty of room for more" and appeals to the other women on the boat to return. [37] A visibly upset Hichens asks the boat's occupants whether they want to live or to die in the North Atlantic, and then threatens and hushes Brown by telling her that "there will be one (seat) less on this boat, if you don't shut that hole in [your] face." [38] [37]
Hichens' great-granddaughter Sally Nilsson wrote a book about Hichens, where she disputes the portrayal of her great-grandfather in depictions of the Titanic sinking. [28] Nilsson said that all the lifeboats were in the same situation, but that it was Margaret Brown who "put the nail in the coffin for Robert", when she told media that Hichens was a "coward and a bully". [28]
Nilsson says in her book, The Man Who Sank Titanic, that Hichens moved with his wife and children to Torquay, Devon. [28] Shortly after moving to Torquay, Hichens' wife left him and returned to Southampton. [28] According to Nilsson, Hichens suffered from neurasthenia (a term of the times to refer to PTSD), and never recovered, spending time in jail for attempted murder and having a low-profile life until his death in September 1940, as he returned from a trip to Africa, where the SS English Trader had taken coal during the context of World War II. [28]
The other seaman in charge of the boat, lookout Fleet, also suffered from mental health problems stemming from the sinking. Fleet, who served in both World Wars, never progressed in his maritime career, alleging that his connection to the Titanic impacted him. [39] Following his wife's death in December 1964, Fleet fell into a downward spiral, killing himself two weeks later, in January 1965. [40] [41]
