Memorials and monuments to victims of thesinking of the RMSTitanic exist in a number of places around the world associated withTitanic, notably inBelfast,Liverpool andSouthampton in theUnited Kingdom;Halifax, Nova Scotia inCanada; andNew York City andWashington, D.C. in theUnited 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 shipbuildersHarland 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 asTitanic's captain, were commemorated individually. Elsewhere, in the United States, Australia and Bulgaria, public memorials were erected to commemorate all the victims.
Wallace Hartley, the bandleader aboardTitanic, was buried in his home townColne inLancashire under a fine headstone engraved with the opening bars of the hymnNearer, 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 holdinglyres in their hands. The original figures were stolen and have been replaced by plastic replicas.[1]
A memorial to thirty-six engineers aboardTitanic is located in the offices of theScottish Opera at 39 Elmbank Crescent,Glasgow – formerly the headquarters of theInstitution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland, whose members funded the memorial. The memorial, designed byKellock 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 theTitanic 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 GlasgowTitanic Engineers' memorial does not include the names of William Duffy (Chief Engineer's Clerk), or ofThomas Andrews (Managing Director of Harland and Wolff, principal designer of theTitanic and leader of the commissioning team on board), both of whom are named on theTitanic Engineers' Memorial, Southampton.
The body ofTitanic'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 ofGodalming inSurrey. Acloister 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 SSTitanic
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 nearbyFarncombe, his home village, where a brass tablet was erected in the Church of St. John the Evangelist.[6]
Titanic's captainEdward Smith is commemorated by a statue inBeacon Park,Lichfield – a town with which he had absolutely no connection, as he had been born inHanley, 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 thediocese 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 SSTitanic 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 byKathleen Scott, the widow of the Antarctic explorerRobert 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 mentionTitanic, 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 thewreck of theTitanic 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 theTitanic" were added to its plinth and both Hanley andStoke-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]
AlthoughTitanic never visited her home port of Liverpool, a significant percentage of Titanic's crew members were from Liverpool. TheMemorial to the Engine Room Heroes of theTitanic was completed in May 1916 but was not formally dedicated due to the ongoingWorld War I. It is situated atPier Head inLiverpool City Centre close to the former White Star Line headquarters.[13] A plaque dedicated to the ship's musicians is located in the city'sPhilharmonic Hall onHope Street.[14]
A smallTitanic Memorial Garden is located in the grounds of theNational Maritime Museum,Greenwich. It was opened in April 1995 byEdith 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 at80 Coleman Street, listing thirty-eight names. The memorial is topped by a figure ofTriton driving a team of fourpolar 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, amemorial to the ship's musicians was unveiled but was destroyed by German bombing inWorld War II. It has since been replaced by a replica situated on the corner of Cumberland Place and London Road.[19]
The following April, theTitanic Engineers' Memorial was dedicated in front of 100,000 people.[19] On 27 July 1915, a small memorial fountain made ofPortland stone commemorating all of the lost crew members was unveiled on Southampton Common. It became the target of vandalism and was moved into the ruinedHolyrood 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, which was part of the United Kingdom at the time of the sinking, had four principal connections withTitanic; 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 (nowCobh) on the south coast of Ireland.
TheTitanic 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 SirThomas Brock RA, it was carved fromCarrara marble and depicts a personification of Death holding a laurel wreath over the head of a drowned sailor.[21]
TheIrish Free State (now theRepublic of Ireland) had little interest in commemorating the disaster and it was not until 1998 that aTitanic memorial was erected in Cobh. It consists of abas-relief depicting third-class passenger Margaret Rice and her five sons, all of whom died in the sinking, and bears the dedication: "Commemorating RMSTitanic and her last port of call on her maiden and final voyage, April 12, 1912".[22][19] The town installed 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.
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Two memorials toTitanic's musicians were erected inAustralia. The local bandsmen of the outback mining town ofBroken Hill, New South Wales erected theTitanic 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 steamshipTitanic 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 SSTitanic Memorial Bandstand erected in 1915 inBallarat, Victoria. Designed by George Clegg and funded by the Victorian Band Association at a cost of £150, it stands in theSturt 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]
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, andBaron 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 theTitanic's chief steward, Ernest Freeman, whose headstone was donated by the White Star Line's chairmanJ. Bruce Ismay. The graves are still maintained under a trust established by the White Star Line.[33]
There is a monument in the churchyard of the small Bulgarian village of Gumoshtnik, the birthplace of 8 of the 38 Bulgarian victims.
