From Redruth to 41°43′57′′ N 49°56′49′′ W, Part 2 of 2 by Tim Koch

One of the many thousands of commemorative postcards produced following the sinking of the Titanic. It contains two of the many Titanic myths i.e. Captain Smith’s alleged last command (“Be British!”) and the type of music that the band played as the ship went down (most survivors said that they were playing ragtime, not hymns).

September 2025

In Part 1, Tim gave a brief overview of the 62 Cornish born people who were on the Titanic, only 15 of whom survived. In Part 2, some common misconceptions regarding the Titanic are challenged and a few of the countless personal tales of some of the Cornish people onboard are told.

Famously, the Titanic did not have enough lifeboats for everyone on board. However, there were more lifeboat spaces than the regulations demanded and more than any other transatlantic ship then operating. It was not thought that the passengers and crew would ever need to be all evacuated at the same time; it was reasoned that Titanic could stay afloat long enough to allow them to be transferred to a rescue ship, a limited number at a time. It has also been argued that, even if there had been enough lifeboats, there would not have been time to launch them all.

Regarding access to the lifeboats, there was the unofficial but unyielding mantra of “women and children first” (soon used against the suffragette movement as 'Boats for Women') but there is no evidence of class discrimination in filling the boats or that the 3rd Class passengers were locked below and left to drown, whatever the inexplicably popular 1997 feature film, Titanic, depicts (while historical accuracy is too much to ask of Hollywood, I would have thought that “the biggest motion picture ever made” would have enough room to include some three-dimensional characters).

Left: Promenading on the boat deck. Right: An illustration showing the difficulty of launching the lifeboats.

 The reason that the survival rates for first, second and third class were markedly different (61%, 42% and 24% respectively) was largely because of the differing access to the boat deck where the lifeboats were kept. It was a place that the 1st and 2nd class passengers knew well but which those in 3rd Class would never have visited. 

There is a theory that the relatively poor survival rate of the 2nd Class passengers was due to their working and middle class deference to both their social superiors and to the ship’s officers when attempting to get a place in a lifeboat.

For the 3rd class on the lowest decks, finding their way to the top level of the sinking ship was never going to be easy. Further, understanding instructions for the half of steerage passengers who spoke little or no English was near impossible. The British inquiry report also noted that some 3rd Class passengers were 'reluctant' to leave the ship because they were 'unwilling to part with their baggage.' The migrants’ pathetic belongings were all that they had.

A contemporary cutaway diagram for Titanic and its sister ship, Olympic. Plans of the layouts of all the Titanic’s decks can be viewed on the website SS Maritime. Picture: Wikipedia/Public  Domain.

A ship of 2,224 souls would have had 2,224 stories. Space only allows for a fleeting look at a few of the Cornish people who were part of what was then the world’s worst peacetime maritime disaster.

The crewman who was at the Titanic’s wheel when the ship hit the iceberg was Robert Hichens from Newlyn. The most common version of events is that when the berg, hidden by peculiar atmospheric conditions, was eventually spotted very close ahead, First Officer William Murdoch gave the order for Hichens to turn the ship to port in an avoiding action. However, it was too late and the jagged underwater edges of the iceberg, whose tip stood perhaps 100 feet above the water, ripped open the side of the turning ship. 

Had Murdoch taken the conventional course of action in such circumstances and hit the iceberg head on, a sinking probably would have been averted but there may have been severe damage and possibly deaths in the bow section. It was an impossible decision that Murdoch had only seconds to make. Hitchens was only obeying a clear order but, in doing so, the 29-year-old Cornishman probably sank the Titanic. He survived but afterwards led a chaotic and unhappy life.

Another Cornish crewman was 23-year-old Archie Jewell from Bude, one of the lookouts. On the night of 14 April, he had worked the 8pm to 10pm shift. Around 9.30pm he got an instruction from the bridge telling him to watch for icebergs but up to the time of his relief he saw nothing of concern and was in his bunk when disaster struck at 11.40pm. Incredibly, not only did Archie survive the Titanic in 1912, he was one of 30 survivors out of 1066 onboard the Britannic when it was sunk by a mine in 1916 and was then on the Donegal when it was fatally torpedoed in 1917. On this third sinking, the sea finally claimed Archie Jewell forever.

Postal clerk John Richard Jago Smith, 35, from St Keverne died on the Titanic and was one of the people onboard who were given posthumous hero status, probably in an ongoing attempt to make something glorious out of the disaster. Following the collision with the iceberg, Smith and the other postal clerks worked tirelessly but fruitlessly to save the mail. This pointless devotion to an ultimately unimportant duty was much lauded at the time.

Thirty-two-year-old Stephen Jenkin had emigrated to Houghton, Michigan, in 1903 and worked as a copper miner. He returned to his family in St Ives for a visit in the summer of 1911. For his return to Houghton, coal shortages meant that his reservation was switched to Titanic. The website Encyclopaedia Titanica says: It was later reported that shortly after leaving St Ives for Southampton he had misgivings about the new ship and returned to his parents to leave his valuables including his watch with them in case anything should happen to him.

Edwy Arthur West was born in Perranzabuloe and his wife, Ada, was a native of Truro. They were travelling to Florida with their daughters, Constance (5) and Barbara (10 months) to begin a fruit business. Ada later recalled the night of the sinking:

Arthur placed lifebelts upon the children and then carried them to the boat deck. After seeing us safely into the lifeboat, he returned to the cabin for a thermos of hot milk, and, finding the lifeboat let down, he reached it by means of a rope, gave the flask to me, and, with a farewell, returned to the deck of the ship.

Arthur’s body was not found though the thermos still exists. Throughout her long life, Barbara refused to discuss the disaster outside of her family. She died in Truro in 2007 aged 96, the penultimate living Titanic survivor (the last was Millvina Dean from Devon who died aged 97 in 2009). Barbara insisted that her funeral take place quietly before any public announcement of her death.

A poster aimed at third class travellers advertising the return voyage of the Titanic from New York, one that never happened.

 Percy Bailey was born in Penzance in 1894. Like his father, he was a butcher and had lived at 25 Gwavas Street all his life. Percy had initially booked on the Oceanic but transferred to Titanic when he learned that several of his friends would be on board. On a second class ticket, the eighteen-year-old was destined for Akron, Ohio, where he had a job with a local butcher. 

Several of the Titanic’s Cornish passengers were also heading to Akron and the website West Penwith Resources notes that over the years many people from the Penzance area went there to work, notably in the local rubber factories.

Read in retrospect, Percy’s optimistic, innocent and loving last letter to his parents (reproduced from encyclopedia-titanica.org) is heart-breaking:

Dear Father and Mother,

We arrived on board this morning after a nights rest at Southampton. We put up at an hotel named Berriman’s, the lady who owns it is a Cornish lady, we had a good supper and a good breakfast of ham and eggs, we were doing it fine. 

I slept with a young man named Wills, a brother to the man who married Mrs Trevask’s daughter, he came to Southampton to see his sister-in-law. We had several people

joined (sic) us at St. Erith (sic) bound for the same place as we are going so we are a big family altogether. 

Well dear Mother, I suppose you are missing me but don't be downhearted old dear, Percy will be behaved to you as a son ought to treat his Mother and Father. This going away from home will make me a better man and try and lead a good life. 

The Titanic is a marvel I can tell you I have never seen such a sight in all my life, she is like a floating palace, everything up to date. I hope you are all well as it leaves me at present.

Father I shall never forget your kindness, you have done more for me than many Fathers have done for their sons. 

Well dear parents, I don't think there is any more news I can tell you now kiss Grandma for me and tell her I am sorry for all my wicked thoughts which I said to her, but never again will I cheek her.

Give my best love to all who ask for me and tell Ethel to come and see you any time. I will draw my letter to a close hoping you one and all are quite well.

I remain your loving son,

Percy

Percy’s body was never recovered.

Edwardian religiosity. The quote "Not even God Himself could sink this ship," was a popular legend that emerged after the sinking, serving as a stark contrast to the event and highlighting the hubris of those who believed in Titanic’s invulnerability. Even in 1912, there were wild conspiracy theories saying that the sinking could not have been an accident. 

The story of the Titanic is one of tragedy, resilience, and countless personal tales woven into a larger historical narrative. The survivors from 2nd and 3rd Class were assisted by relief funds in both Britain and America, though many still struggled. Some went on to their American destinations and established lives for themselves, while others, including three Cornishwomen, Annie Hold, Emily Richards and Ada West, returned home.

A final thought. Titanic was not actually built as a floating luxury hotel, it was essentially conceived as a migrant ship. This was why it was so large, the big profits were to be made in transporting a lot of poor people, not a few rich people. One-hundred-and-thirteen years later, there is still widespread empathy with those who had left their native lands in order to improve their lot only to meet a cruel death. It is strange therefore that, in modern times, desperate people travelling in search of a better life, some of whom suffer an equally savage end at sea in small boats, receive little compassion or understanding and are not collectively granted the sympathetic title of 'diaspora'. Over a century after the Titanic, not all economic migrants are treated as equal, even in death.

Thank you Tim for such an interesting and moving blog. Those Cornish names resonate so loudly; I feel like I know them all. I am off to France at the weekend with my friend Sheena in her camper van. We are crossing on Brittany Ferries so will have these people's destinies in my mind. Fingers crossed there are no icebergs in the Channel...

In the meantime, I will sneak in a short blog on a daytrip to St Ives. What a summer we have had, glorious sunshine and just when needed, gentle rain. Very lucky. AH