by Steve Turner
There were suggestions after the sinking that journalist and spiritualist W. T. Stead, who calmly went down on the ship, may have requested that the band play “Nearer, My God, to Thee.” This wasn’t because anyone overheard such a conversation, but because he’d recently authored a book called Hymns That Have Helped Me, for which he asked well-known people for their recommendations. “In our pilgrimage through life we discover the hymns which help,” Stead wrote in the introduction. He continued:
We come out of trials and temptations with hymns clinging to our memory like burrs. Some of us could almost use the hymnbook as the key to our autobiography. Hymns, like angels and other ministers of grace, often help us and disappear into the void. It is not often that the hymn of our youth is the hymn of our old age. Experience of life is the natural selector of the truly human hymnal.
There is a curious and not a very creditable shrinking on the part of many to testify as to their experience in the deeper matters of the soul. It is an inverted egotism—selfishness masquerading in disguise of reluctance to speak of self. Wanderers across the wilderness of Life ought not to be chary of telling their fellow travelers where they found a green oasis, the healing spring, or the shadow of a great rock in the desert land. It is not regarded as egotism when the passing steamer signals across the Atlantic wave news of her escape from perils of iceberg or fog, or welcome news of good cheer.
Titanic featuring violinist Jonathan Evans-Jones as bandleader Wallace Hartley (1997).
The Prince of Wales chose “Nearer, My God, to Thee” for Stead’s project and it became widely known as the prince’s favorite hymn. He thought there was no hymn “more touching nor one that goes more truly to the heart.” Stead printed all five verses along with two stories of people who had gained sustenance from the words. The second of these was of a boy soldier in the American Civil War who had lost both arms at Fort Donelson and yet “died on the battlefield singing with his last breath, ‘Nearer, my God, to Thee.’ It might fairly be called the most popular hymn among all sorts and conditions of men in America.”
It was also the favorite hymn of President McKinley, who supposedly used the words as a form of prayer as he lay dying after being shot by the anarchist Leon Czolgosz at the Temple of Music in Buffalo, New York, in September 1901. The song was sung at his funeral and at all the various memorial services that followed.
One of the most compelling pieces of evidence, though, for the use of “Nearer, My God, to Thee” was the fact that it was the best-loved hymn of Wallace Hartley and had been introduced to the Bethel Chapel by Wallace’s father, Albion Hartley, when he was choirmaster. A friend from Colne told the British Weekly: “It was the custom of the Bethel church choir leader to choose the hymn or chant after prayer and Mr. Albion Hartley often selected ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee.’ The hymn was also a great favourite with his son, the bandmaster of the Titanic, for a cousin mentioned that he would often be kept waiting for Wallace to go and play cricket because he was practicing ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee’ in variations on the violin.”
Ellwand Moody, Hartley’s friend from the Mauretania, told the Leeds Mercury in April 1912: “I remember one day I asked him what he would do if he were ever on a sinking ship and he replied ‘I don’t think I would do better than play “Oh God Our Help in Ages Past” or “Nearer, My God, to Thee”.’” In a statement attributed to Hartley, but not sourced and therefore dubious, he confirmed it as his favorite hymn but added: “I’m keeping that one reserved for my funeral.” E. J. Elliot, president of the Musicians Union in Louisville, Kentucky, told the Brooklyn Eagle that it was a tradition for American musicians to play the music of the hymn at the graveside of departed colleagues. “I believe, knowing they were doomed as a result of their own heroism, the members of the ship’s orchestra thus commended their own souls to their God, giving expression to their petition in the notes of their instruments.”
In his 1986 book The Night Lives On, however, the follow-up to A Night to Remember, Walter Lord raised an interesting issue that questioned the validity of the story of the tune’s use. He pointed out that although apparently both Americans and Britons recognized it, the hymn was sung to different tunes on either side of the Atlantic. The Church of England used a tune called “Horbury.” The Methodists in England preferred a tune written by Arthur Sullivan (of Gilbert and Sullivan) named “Propior Deo” and Americans generally used a Lowell Mason tune known as “Bethany.” He concluded: “Unless the band played all three versions (an absurdity), more than half of those who remembered the hymn must have been mistaken.”4
This point has since been repeated over and over by various Titanic commentators, leading to the belief that the story of the band playing “Nearer, My God, to Thee” must be a myth. Lord didn’t take into account, however, that Hartley wasn’t just a Methodist, he was an Independent Methodist, a branch of Methodism mostly concentrated in the northwest of England. In the Independent Methodist Church Hymnal of 1902, “Nearer, My God, to Thee” is #529. In the accompanying music book, two tunes are suggested—#256, which is Arthur Sullivan’s “Propior Deo,” and #258, which is Lowell Mason’s tune “Bethany,” here referred to as “Bethel.” Therefore it’s fairly certain that Hartley, as the choirmaster’s son, would at least have been aware of the two tunes and, as he would very likely have worshipped at Methodist churches in New York during his many visits involving weekend stopovers, would have heard the tune played.
The Primitive Methodist Hymnal of 1889, which Hartley may also have known, had both these tunes, plus “Horbury.” Lowell Mason’s tune had become well-known in England because it was featured in songbooks by the American musician Ira Sankey, which became very popular in the late nineteenth century when Sankey toured Britain as music director and singer with evangelist Dwight Moody.
Another point worth making is that “Bethany” (or “Bethel”) and “Propior Deo,” although in different time signatures, can sound very similar. What may have aided the process of recognition is the fact that passengers began singing along, both on deck and in the lifeboats. Even if the tunes were different, anyone knowing the words would have been able to join in without too much difficulty. The differences in the tunes could have gone unnoticed beneath the torrent of familiar words.
A Night to Remember featuring Charles Belchier as Wallace Hartley (1958).
The final timing question is—were they actually playing “Nearer, My God, to Thee” during the very last moments of the Titanic? An English passenger, Ada Clarke, made the case that they were. “They were brave and splendid, all the men. They died like brave men. At the last, all the men were kneeling and there floated out across the water the strains of ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee.’ I could hear it and saw the band men kneeling, too.” Her story has been questioned because she left the ship fifty minutes before it went down and is unlikely to have been able to see such physical detail from her position when it sank.
Annie Martin, a stewardess who had previously been on the Olympic, was approached by the Liverpool Daily Post when she arrived back in England and was asked: “It’s true that the band was playing as the ship was sinking, isn’t it?” Her answer was: “Oh yes. They were playing. When we left the side of the ship [in lifeboat 11 at 1:25] the men were sitting on the companionway on the A Deck forward with lifebelts by their sides. They were making no attempt to put the belts on. Many of them were smoking. Others were beating time to the music with their feet. Even then, they thought they were safe. Everybody thought everybody would be saved.”
One of the most dramatic accounts of the final moments came from thirty-four-year-old coal trimmer Thomas Patrick “Paddy” Dillon, who was interviewed by a local newspaper in Plymouth, England, after arriving back on the Red Star Line ship Lapland on April 28. He said he was one of the last to leave the ship and that the poop deck was by then at an angle of around sixty degrees and after a second explosion the bow “seemed to bob up and then break clean off like a piece of carrot.” The musicians had been p
laying on the deck, he said, but they then slid off the deck along with Captain Smith.
“There was one musician left,” he said. “He was the violinist and was playing the air of the hymn ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee.’ The notes of this music were the last thing I heard before I went off the poop and felt myself going headlong into the icy water with the engines and machinery buzzing in my ears.” He estimated that he dropped two fathoms in the sea and when he came back up he was picked up by lifeboat 4. Another survivor interviewed at the same time said: “They began to render hymn tunes and continued to do to the last. While playing ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee’ the water was washing over their feet, and in a very short time they disappeared beneath the waves.”
There were several other survivors who swore the musicians played until the very end and didn’t pack their instruments away in order to dive into the water. American Caroline Brown, who left on collapsible D at 2:05, said: “The band played marching from deck to deck, and as the ship went under I could still hear the music. The musicians were up to their knees in water when last I saw them.” American Alice Leeder, who left at 1:15 on lifeboat 8, wrote a letter the next day on the Carpathia in which she said: “I shall never forget the sight of that beautiful boat as she went down, the orchestra playing to the last, the lights burning until they were extinguished by the waves. It sounds so unreal, like a scene on the stage.”
Another survivor claimed that at the end they played nothing but the hymn: “Suddenly the band stopped. The leader moved his baton and in slow, solemn tones the air ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee’ was wafted across the water to our ears. The band played the hymn continuously until their instruments were choked off by the swirling water.” Charlotte Collyer, who had to leave her husband on the ship, said: “They kept it up to the very end. Only the engulfing ocean had power to drown them into silence. The band was playing ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee.’ I could hear it distinctly. The end was very close.”
The evidence for “Nearer, My God, to Thee” being the band’s final song seems overwhelming. A reporter from the Witney Gazette, who interviewed many of the 167 survivors brought back to Plymouth on the Lapland, concluded: “Practically all of the survivors agree that the band played hymns and not ‘ragtime’ tunes. After his fellow musicians had been washed away the violinist continued playing ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee’ until he went under with the ship.”
Speaking to the Daily Sketch, the Titanic’s chief steward Edward Wheelton, who was rescued by lifeboat 11, said. “It was only just before the liner made her final plunge that the character of the programme was changed, and then they struck up ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee.’” An unnamed survivor interviewed by the Western Daily Mercury said: “I shall never forget hearing the strains of that beautiful hymn as I was leaving the sinking ship. It was always a favourite hymn of mine, but at such a time and under such tragic circumstances it had for me a solemnity too deep for words. No praise could be sufficient for those courageous musicians whom we left behind. They were heroes to a man.”
The only report of anyone from the band speaking to someone during this time was one of a musician “with a French accent” helping a woman into a lifeboat and another of Hartley giving Florence Ware, a second-class passenger from Bristol, his silver pocket flask with a drop of whiskey in it to keep her warm. The flask, made by James Dixon & Son of Sheffield in 1900, was auctioned in 1993 by Onslows, the British auctioneers. Doubts were subsequently raised about the authenticity of this story because Hartley was a known teetotaler and also because Mrs. Ware didn’t mention this outstanding story when interviewed by the Bristol Times immediately after the sinking.
One can only guess what was going through the musicians’ minds as hopes of rescue disappeared. While they were playing, the music would have acted as a mental safety rail and given them a purpose; but once they put down their valuable instruments, the true gravity of the moment they were facing would have rushed into their overly alert minds. They would have thought of parents, girlfriends, nephews, nieces. Hume would have thought of the child he now knew he’d never see. Brailey would have thought of the warning his father had given him.
Carlos Hurd left behind two pages of notes that were neither in his hand nor his wife’s, but appear to be a timetable of events on the Titanic possibly collected by someone he had recruited to help him on the Carpathia. At the end it says the “band had been playing rag time, now playing ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee.’” It mentions Hartley tapping on the bulkhead “as water swirls about his feet” and refers to Captain Smith “on bridge. As water comes to it steps forward to meet it.” At 2:17 it says the lights went out. At 2:18: “band plays in darkness.” At 2:20: “Ship sinks in white wake … One long continuous moon.”
The final dive of the ship, as the bow lay submerged and the stern rose out of the water, was truly horrendous for all who witnessed it. This object of great beauty—even in its stricken condition—went down with a terrifying roar as all the boilers and internal machinery came away from their anchoring bolts and plunged through the shell of the ship, destroying everything in their way. The crashing of the machinery combined with the hissing of hot coals meeting the cold water created a sound that survivors later described as the most bloodcurdling they had ever heard. There was nothing they could compare it to.
The only sound left now was the crying of those who’d jumped into the icy water when they realized all hope of rescue had gone. Most of them would die not from drowning but from hypothermia and shock. By keeping them afloat, the life jackets designed to save them actually prolonged their agony. One survivor initially said that it was like hearing the screams of children in a playground but then corrected herself. She said it was far more horrific than that because these were the screams of adults who were fully aware of what was happening to them. The screams had nothing of the anticipation of a child. They were undiluted fear and desperation.
The rich died alongside the poor, the millionaire philanthropist alongside the impoverished Italian immigrant. No doubt the cries were in many languages and addressed to many gods. Benjamin Guggenheim and Thomas Andrews were lost, as were James Clinch Smith; Dr. Ernest Moraweck; Robert Norman; Archibald Butt; Jacques Futrelle; and Francis Davis Millet; Jack Phillips, the courageous radio operator; and Edward Smith, the captain, were never seen again.
Those fortunate enough to be in lifeboats had no idea when rescue would come or even if it would come. They didn’t know which ships had been called or how close they might be. As it was, the first survivors to be picked up by the Carpathia weren’t reached until 4:45 and the last wouldn’t be rescued until 8:00. Until that time they just had to float, and to wait, and to try to keep warm, many of them after having lost parents, husbands, wives, and other relations. “I knew that no man could save me,” Kate Buss wrote in her journal. “I was alone with God, and whatever happened must be for the best. I felt as I have felt before when death has stared me in the face, that I had to do nothing but wait on God’s will.”
12
“IT IS WITH GREAT SADNESS
THAT I HAVE TO GIVE YOU
THE PAINFUL NEWS.”
Cunard’s Carpathia, so recently home for Theo Brailey, was the first ship on the scene of the disaster. Its wireless operator, Harold Cottam, had been on his way to bed in the early minutes of April 15, when he put the headphones on for one last time and noticed there was no signal from the Titanic. Cottam tapped out a message: “What’s wrong? Should I tell my captain?” Jack Phillips on the Titanic responded immediately: “Yes. It’s a CQD, old man! We’ve hit a berg and are sinking.” (The CQD signal was predecessor to the SOS.) The Carpathia was then around sixty miles away and at 12:45, after speaking to Captain Arthur Rostron, Cottam told Phillips that his ship would be there in around four hours. “We’re turning around and steaming full force toward you.”
It was a bold decision by Rostron to alter direction to meet the Titanic. He immediately prepared by turning the saloons into reception centers, put
ting the doctors on duty, and getting his ship’s lifeboats ready. Never before having dealt with a disaster, he was imagining the more straightforward task of drawing alongside the stricken vessel and taking on board its passengers and crew. He never envisaged that by the time he arrived the Titanic would have completely disappeared.
By cutting off heating for the cabins and working the boilers to their capacity, Rostron was able to get the Carpathia to sail faster than she had ever sailed before, reaching the position given by Phillips less than three hours from the time of the last message. At first there was nothing to be seen, but then at 4:00 a green flare sent up by a lifeboat was seen and ten minutes later the first Titanic passenger from lifeboat 2 was hoisted up on a bosun’s chair. The last lifeboat, number 12, came alongside at 8:00 and the last survivor came on board at 9:00. A total of 710 had made it, although 5 were to die before landfall. “Our decks and dining rooms were swarmed with the rescued, and such a pitiful sight I hope never to have to behold again,” wrote Carlos Hurd’s wife, Katherine, in a letter to her mother on April 18. “When we look upon the broken families all around us it makes us feel as if we would like to chuck the whole trip and run back to our own. But I suppose we will go on. Europe has certainly lost its savour to us now.”
Rostron had to decide whether to head for the nearest land or head back to New York. “There was talk of turning back to Halifax, a run of about 36 hours,” wrote Katherine Hurd, “but this plan was abandoned, I think because of the icebergs which were unusual in size and number for that latitude and time of year.” Rostron chose the safest option, New York, and later that day Cottam sent a list of all survivors to officers on the Olympic, who would then pass them to White Star in New York. This was the first time that anyone on land had any inkling of the extent of the disaster. None of the musicians was on this list.
