In the latest edition of our ‘Little Did You Know’ series, we take a look at the Derbyshire man who, against the odds, survived one of the world’s most well-known shipping disasters
This is Lawrence Beesley – the Derbyshire man who survived the Titanic disaster(Image: Unknown)
As yet another programme appears on television – this time a four-part documentary of the final 160 minutes – it seems that the Titanic disaster is forever etched in the nation’s psyche and fascination with the events of April 15, 1912, continues.
Immersive (literally) experiences are springing up around the globe as people take advantage of modern technology to experience first hand what it was like to be on board the “unsinkable” ship on its fateful maiden voyage. Films have influenced and renewed people’s interest down the years and rumours abound that yet another one could be released in the next couple of years.
But little did you know that Derbyshire could boast one of the few survivors from the sinking. He wrote a celebrated book about his experience – one of the first to be published in the aftermath of the disaster.
Despite the loss of 1,517 passengers and crew, 34-year-old school teacher Lawrence Beesley – on his first ever trip abroad and very nearly proving to be his last – managed to survive.
He was born in Wirksworth on December 31, 1877, the son of bank manager Henry Beesley and his wife, Annie Maria. Educated at both Derby and Wirksworth grammar schools, Lawrence stayed on at the latter as a pupil teacher before gaining a place at Cambridge University.
Graduating with a degree in natural science in 1903, he became a science master at Dulwich College, London, the following year. His subsequent marriage to fellow Wirksworth resident Gertrude Macbeth ended in his wife’s premature death when their son, Alec, was a young boy.
Resigning from his teaching post, Lawrence decided to make his first-ever trip overseas, leaving his son at home with relatives. He planned a tour of the United States and then a visit to his younger brother, Frank, in Canada.
He booked a second-class ticket, costing £13, for the newly-built White Star luxury liner RMS Titanic for this trip of a lifetime.
The ship, dubbed “unsinkable” by its designers, had been built at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast and registered at Liverpool. But it was from the southern English port of Southampton that it set off on its much-anticipated maiden voyage to New York on April 10, 1912, with 1,317 passengers and just short of 900 crew on board.
Captain Edward John Smith, the most senior of the White Star Line’s captains, was transferred from its other liner, The Olympic, to take command of Titanic.
After taking on passengers at Cherbourg in France and Queenstown in Ireland, the ship finally began its crossing of the North Atlantic on April 11. It was just four days out of Southampton when it hit the iceberg which was to prove its tragic downfall. The disaster unfolded at about 11.45pm on the Sunday night.
Lawrence Beesley was reading in bed in his second-class cabin. He felt just a slight heaving motion and thought little of it until a few moments later when the ship’s engines stopped. He left his bed and went to investigate.
Finding no one up on his deck, he went into the smoking room where a group of men were playing cards. He recalled how the men had actually seen an iceberg pass by one of the room’s windows but were quite unconcerned. In fact, one even raised a laugh by asking if someone would go out on the deck to see if it had left any ice to put in his whisky.
But, as they soon discovered, it was to prove no laughing matter. The crew were out in force urging passengers to put on their life jackets.
With inexplicable foresight, Lawrence had actually taken his own down from the wardrobe when he had first gone to bed. From the top boat deck, he and fellow male passengers could only watch and wait as women and children were loaded into the lifeboats on the deck below.
Suddenly, they heard a rumour that men were to be loaded on the other side of the ship and this left Lawrence almost on his own as he remained where he was. Then, as lifeboat number 13 was about to be launched, a crew member called up to him asking if there were any women waiting with him.
With no one else around to take the last seat, Lawrence was told to jump down into the boat. It was a chance occurrence that was to save his life, for what many of the passengers did not realise was that the ship had nowhere near enough lifeboats to evacuate everyone from the vessel.
At first, the lifeboat almost lived up to its superstitious number of 13 – lowered on ropes down the liner’s massive side into the sea, it was nearly engulfed by the outflow from the ship’s pumps. Even worse, it then drifted beneath the path of descending lifeboat number 15.
With their cries unheard, and no one knowing how to release the ropes, its passengers were in real danger of being crushed. Then, at the last moment, one of the crew managed to cut the vessel free. According to Lawrence’s later recollections, of the 64 people on board the lifeboat, around half were crew members.
But, as they were all either stokers, cooks or stewards, not one of them seemed to know how to row properly. Nevertheless, they had managed to travel more than a mile when the Titanic finally turned stern uppermost. With the horrendous din of crashing machinery coming from within, she sank beneath the waves.
But, Lawrence recalled, after the ship had gone there came a sound even more dreadful; the cries for help from the hundreds of people left in the ice-cold water. A couple of hours later, when the Cunard liner Carpathia arrived on the scene, boat 13’s crew improvised a paper torch out of a bundle of letters to attract her attention.
As he steamed toward New York safely aboard the Carpathia, Lawrence decided to write an account of what had happened while it was still fresh in his mind. Three months later, his story was published.
The Loss of the Titanic was the first significant examination of the disaster and it soon became accepted as one of the most detailed eyewitness accounts of that terrible night.
In writing his book, Lawrence Beesley sincerely hoped he might help prevent such a tragedy from happening again. For this Derbyshire survivor of one of the world’s worst peacetime maritime disasters felt it was something he and his fellow survivors owed to the 1,517 passengers and crew who had perished in the tragedy.
Beesley also attended the filming of the movie A Night To Remember in 1958. According to the Internet Movie Database, he gatecrashed the set during the sinking scene, hoping to ‘go down with the ship’ a second time. But he was spotted by the director, Roy Ward Baker, who vetoed this unscheduled appearance, due to actors’ union rules. Lawrence died, aged 89, in 1969.
Other Titanic connections include that the china used in its Ritz Restaurant was made at the Royal Crown Derby factory in Osmaston Road. And William Blount, a resident of South Street, Derby, missed the sailing of the Titanic due to a slight delay on his way to Southampton.
Fate was less kind to a first-class passenger by the name of Tyrrell William Cavendish. He was a wealthy nephew of Emily Mundy, of Markeaton Hall. His American wife later told how her husband had woken her, wrapped her in his overcoat and saw her safely aboard a lifeboat.
He gave her a goodbye kiss, telling her he would be all right and disappeared into the crowd. Julia Cavendish was never to see her husband alive again. Mr Cavendish was a frequent visitor to Mackworth and Markeaton Hall, where his two young children stayed after their father’s death.
A remembrance service was held at All Saints’ Church on the Sunday after the disaster. The Union Flag was flown at half mast above the church.
And finally, on the Titanic theme, a strange coincidence happened some years ago when Patrick Murphy was buying a ticket for the much-acclaimed Titanic Exhibition in Florida.
Mr Murphy, of Wirksworth, had been on holiday to the Sunshine State twice before but had never visited the museum on International Drive, Orlando. So this time, he decided to go to see what life was like aboard the famous liner before tragedy struck.
Each of the tickets had either the name of a passenger or member of crew printed on it, saying who they were and where they were from. There were 2,224 aboard the Titanic from all over England, Ireland and America. But from all those people Mr Murphy’s ticket was made out to Lawrence Beesley, a schoolmaster, from Wirksworth.
Not only did he come from Mr Murphy’s home town but he actually taught at his former school when it was Wirksworth Grammar.. Mr Murphy had never heard of Lawrence Beesley until then and couldn’t believe the coincidence. Spooky.
The next instalment in the ‘Little Did You Know’ series will be coming soon. Meanwhile, catch up with some of the best ones below: