Titanic dead on public list (From Thisisdorset)

Titanic dead on public list

10:15am Monday 16th April 2007

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TITANIC disaster victims from Dorset feature in a newly-published register of all who sailed on the ill-fated liner.

The register of the ship has gone online for the first time to mark the 95th anniversary of the sinking of the ship when she hit an iceberg on her maiden voyage on April 15, 1912.

It features Percy Thomas Ward, 38, from Weymouth, as well as Richard May, 26, and Edwy West, both from Bournemouth.

Mr Ward was on board the Titanic for her delivery trip from Belfast shipyards to Southampton.

When he signed on to work on the ship, in Southampton on April 4, 1912, he gave his address as 36 Richfield Road, Shirley, Hampshire.

As a bedroom steward he received monthly wages of £3 15s. Mr Ward died in the tragedy - among 1,523 people who died in the disaster.

His body, if recovered, was never identified.

Titanic, which was thought unsinkable, had sailed from Southampton on April 10 en route to New York via Cherbourg and Cobh in Ireland.

A commemoration service took place in Southampton to honour 549 residents - many of whom were crew - who died on the liner.

www.ancestorsonboard.com - a website developed in association with The National Archives - has placed the original passenger list of RMS Titanic online to mark her sinking.

The release brings the original, handwritten lists together for the first time.

The 34-page original document had been housed in separate boxes and kept under lock and key at The National Archives in Kew and was only available for viewing under supervision.

It names the passengers and provides such details as their port of departure, occupation, nationality, age, the class they travelled in and destination.

Jacob Gibbons from Swanage survived the Titanic. He was only on the Titanic to recuperate from peritonitis - often fatal in those days - and worked on board as a steward.

A postcard he sent from the doomed liner's last port of call in Queen's Town in Ireland fetched £7,750 at auction.

It rather ominously said: 'A good voyage so far'.

Nearly a decade ago Sadie Puckett, of Christchurch Court, Dorchester, told how her brother George Symons had survived the disaster. Merchant Seaman George rowed Sir Cosmo and Lady Lucile Duff-Gordon, other crew and American passengers to safety as the ship sunk below the North Atlantic waters.

She said she was proud of him for rowing survivors to safety.

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