Thomas Andrews, Shipbuilder

From Cherbourg he wrote again to Mrs. Andrews: “We reached here in nice time and took on board quite a number of passengers. The two little tenders looked well, you will remember we built them about a year ago. We expect to arrive at Queenstown about 10.30 a.m. to-morrow. The weather is fine and everything shaping for a good voyage. I have a seat at the Doctor’s table.”

One more letter was received from him by Mrs. Andrews, and only one, this time from Queenstown, and dated April 11th. Everything on board was going splendidly, he said, and he expressed his satisfaction at receiving so much kindness from everyone.

Here all direct testimony ceases. Proudly, in eye of the world, the Titanic sailed Westward from the Irish coast; then for a while disappeared; only to reappear in a brief scene of woefullest tragedy round which the world stayed mute. If, as is almost certain, a chronicle of the voyage was made by Andrews, both it and the family letters he wrote now are gone with him. But fortunately, we have other evidence, plentiful and well-attested, and on such our story henceforward runs.

The steward, Henry E. Etches, who attended him says, that during the voyage, right to the moment of disaster, Andrews was constantly busy. With his workmen he went about the boat all day long, putting things right and making note of every suggestion of an imperfection. Afterwards in his stateroom, which is described as being full of charts, he would sit for hours, making calculations and drawings for future use.

Others speak of his great popularity with both passengers and crew. “I was proud of him,” writes the brave stewardess, Miss May Sloan, of Belfast, whose testimony is so invaluable. “He came from home and he made you feel on the ship that all was right.” And then she adds how because of his big, gentle, kindly nature everyone loved him. “It was good to hear his laugh and have him near you. If anything went wrong it was always to Mr. Andrews one went. Even when a fan stuck in a stateroom, one would say, ‘Wait for Mr. Andrews, he’ll soon see to it,’ and you would find him settling even the little quarrels that arose between ourselves. Nothing came amiss to him, nothing at all. And he was always the same, a nod and a smile or a hearty word whenever he saw you and no matter what he was at.”

Two of his table companions, Mr. and Mrs. Albert A. Dick, of Calgary, Alberta, also tell how much they came to love Andrews because of his character, and how good it was to see his pride in the ship, “but upon every occasion, and especially at dinner on Sunday evening, he talked almost constantly about his wife, little girl, mother and family, as well as of his home.”

This pre-occupation with home and all there, was noticed too by Miss Sloan. Sometimes, between laughs, he would suddenly fall grave and glance, you might say, back over a shoulder towards Dunallan and Ardara far off near Strangford Lough.

“I was talking to him on the Friday night as he was going into dinner,” writes Miss Sloan, in a letter dated from the Lapland on April 27th. “The dear old Doctor4 was waiting for him on the stair-landing, and calling him by his Christian name, Tommy. Mr. Andrews seemed loth to go, he wanted to talk about home; he was telling me his father was ill and Mrs. Andrews not so well. I was congratulating him on the beauty and perfection of the ship; he said the part he did not like was that the Titanic was taking us further away from home every hour. I looked at him and his face struck me as having a very sad expression.”

One other glimpse we have of him, then in that brief time of triumph, whilst yet the good ship of his which everyone praised was speeding Westwards, “in perfectly clear and fine weather,” towards the place where “was no moon, the stars were out, and there was not a cloud in the sky.”5 For more than a week he had been working at such pressure, that by the Friday evening many saw how tired as well as sad he looked: but by the Sunday evening, when his ship was as perfect, so he said, as brains could make her, he was himself again. “I saw him go in to dinner,” said Miss Sloan, “he was in good spirits, and I thought he looked splendid.”

An hour or two afterwards he went aft to thank the baker for some special bread he had made for him; then back to his stateroom, where apparently he changed into working clothes, and sat down to write.

He was still writing, it would seem, when the Captain called him.

VIII

On the night of Sunday, 14th April, at 11 40 ship’s time, in clear fine weather, near Latitude 41° 46′ N., Longitude 50° 14′ W., the Titanic collided with the submerged spur of an iceberg and ripped her starboard side ten feet above the level of the keel for a length of about three hundred feet, thereby giving access to the sea in six of her forward compartments.

The calamity came with dreadful swiftness. In the vivid words of a stoker, on duty at the time of collision some two hundred and fifty feet from the stem: “All of a sudden the starboard side of the ship came in upon us; it burst like a big gun going off; the water came pouring in and swilled our legs.” Within ten minutes the water rose fourteen feet above the keel in five of the compartments; afterwards it rose steadily in all six; and by midnight had submerged the lower deck in the foremost hold. Yet so gentle apparently was the shock of contact that among the passengers, and probably among most of the crew as well, it was only the stopping of the engines that warned them of some happening; whilst for a considerable time, so quietly the great ship lay on the flat sea, such confidence had all in her strength, and so orderly was everything, that to many, almost to the last, it seemed impossible that disaster had come.6

“At first we did not realise,” says Mr. Albert Dick,7 “that the Titanic was mortally wounded… I do not believe that anyone on her realised she was going to sink.” Mr. Dick goes on to record that, in his view, nothing deserved more praise than the conduct of Andrews after the ship had struck. “He was on hand at once and said that he was going below to investigate. We begged him not to go, but he insisted, saying he knew the ship as no one else did and that he might be able to allay the fears of the passengers. He went.

“As the minutes flew by we did not know what to do or which way to turn… Captain Smith was everywhere doing his best to calm the rising tide of fear… But in the minds of most of us there was … the feeling that something was going to happen, and we waited for Mr. Andrews to come back.

“When he came we hung upon his words, and they were these: ‘There is no cause for any excitement. All of you get what you can in the way of clothes and come on deck as soon as you can. She is torn to bits below, but she will not sink if her after bulkheads hold.’

“It seemed almost impossible that this could be true … and many in the crowd smiled, thinking this was merely a little extra knowledge that Mr. Andrews saw fit to impart…”

It is almost certain that Andrews, who knew the ship as no one else did, realised at his first sight of her wounds – a three hundred feet gash, six compartments open to the sea and perhaps twenty feet of water in one or more of them – that she was doomed. Possibly with some of his faithful assistants, probably with Captain Smith, he had made a thorough examination of the damaged side, reporting to the Captain as result of his examination that the ship could not live more than an hour and a half, and advising him to clear away the boats.

How this order was carried out, with what skill and unselfishness on the part of Captain Smith and his officers, has been told elsewhere8 in full detail; nor is it necessary to record further here than that eventually, after two hours of heroic work, a total of 652 lives left the Titanic in eighteen boats. Subsequently 60 more were rescued from the sea, or transferred from the collapsibles, making a sum total of 712 rescued by the Carpathia. 712 out of 2,201: it seems tragically few! Yet at midnight it may have seemed to Andrews that fewer still could be saved, for not even he hoped that his ship could live for two hours and twenty minutes more.

As he came up from the grim work of investigation he saw Miss Sloan and told her that as an accident had happened it would be well, just by way of precaution, to get her passengers to put on warm clothing and their life belts and assemble on the Boat deck. But she read his face, “which had a look as though he were heart broken,” and asked him if the accident were not serious. He said it was very serious; then, bidding her keep the bad news quiet for fear of panic, he hurried away to the work of warning and rescue.

Another stewardess gives an account of Andrews, bareheaded and insufficiently clad against the icy cold, going quietly about bidding the attendants to rouse all passengers and get them up to the boats.

Overhearing him say to Captain Smith on the Upper deck, “Well, three have gone already, Captain,” she ran to the lower stairway and to her surprise found water within six steps of her feet. Whereupon she hurried above to summon help, and returning met Andrews, who told her to advise passengers to leave the Upper deck.

Ten minutes went. The water had crept further up the stairway. Again Andrews came to her and said, “Tell them to put on warm clothing, see that everyone has a lifebelt and get them all up to the Boat deck.”

Another fifteen minutes went. The top of the stairway was now nearly awash. A second time Andrews came. “Open up all the spare rooms,” he ordered. “Take out all lifebelts and spare blankets and distribute them.”

This was done. Attendants and passengers went above to the Boat deck. But returning for more belts, the stewardess again met Andrews. He asked her whether all the ladies had left their rooms. She answered “Yes, but would make sure.”

“Go round again,” said he; and then, “Did I not tell you to put on your lifebelt. Surely you have one?”

She answered “Yes, but I thought it means to wear it.”

“Never mind that,” said he. “Now, if you value your life, put on your coat and belt, then walk round the deck and let the passengers see you.”

“He left me then,” writes the stewardess, “and that was the last I saw of what I consider a true hero and one of whom his country has cause to be proud.”

In how far Andrews’ efforts and example were the means of averting what might well have been an awful panic, cannot be said; but sure it is that all one man could do in such service, both personally and by way of assisting the ship’s officers, was done by him. “He was here, there and everywhere,” says Miss Sloan, “looking after everybody, telling the women to put on lifebelts, telling the stewardesses to hurry the women up to the boats, all about everywhere, thinking of everyone but himself.”

Others tell a similar story, how calm and unselfish he was, now pausing on his way to the engine-room to reassure some passengers, now earnestly begging women to be quick, now helping one to put on her lifebelt – “all about everywhere, thinking of everybody but himself.”

It is certain also that on the Boat deck he gave invaluable help to the officers and men engaged in the work of rescue. Being familiar with the boats’ tackle and arrangement he was able to aid effectively at their launching; and it was whilst going quietly from boat to boat, probably in those tragic intervals during which the stewardess watched the water creep up the stairway, that he was heard to say: “Now, men, remember you are Englishmen. Women and children first.”

Some twenty minutes before the end, when the last distress signal had been fired in vain, when all that Upper deck and the Fore deck as well were ravaged by the sea, there was a crush and a little confusion near the place where the few remaining boats were being lowered, women and children shrinking back, some afraid to venture, some preferring to stay with their husbands, a few perhaps in the grip of cold and terror. Then Andrews came and waving his arms gave loud command:

“Ladies, you must get in at once. There is not a minute to lose. You cannot pick and choose your boat. Don’t hesitate. Get in, get in!”

They obeyed him. Do they remember to-day, any of them, that to him they, as so many more, may owe their lives?

A little way back from that scene, Miss Sloan stood calmly waiting and seeing Andrews for the last time. She herself was not very anxious to leave the ship, for all her friends were staying behind and she felt it was mean to go. But the command of the man, who for nearly two hours she had seen doing as splendidly as now he was doing, came imperatively. “Don’t hesitate! There’s not a moment to lose. Get in!” So she stepped into the last boat and was saved.

It was then five minutes past two. The Titanic had fifteen minutes more to live.

Well, all was done now that could be done, and the time remaining was short. The Forecastle head was under water. All around, out on the sea, so calm under those wonderful stars, the boats were scattered, some near, some a mile away or more, the eyes of most in them turned back upon the doomed ship as one by one her port lights, that still burnt row above row in dreadful sloping lines, sank slowly into darkness. Soon the lines would tilt upright, then flash out and flash bright again; then, as the engines crashed down through the bulkheads, go out once more, and leave that awful form standing up against the sky, motionless, black, preparing for the final plunge.

But that time was not yet. Some fifteen minutes were left: and in those minutes we still have sight of Andrews.

One met him, bareheaded and carrying a lifebelt, on his way to the bridge perhaps to bid the Captain goodbye.

Later, an assistant steward saw him standing alone in the smoking-room, his arms folded over his breast and the belt lying on a table near him. The steward asked him, “Aren’t you going to have a try for it, Mr. Andrews?”

He never answered or moved, “just stood like one stunned.”

What did he see as he stood there, alone, rapt? We who know the man and his record can believe that before him was home and all the loved ones there, wife and child, father and mother, brothers and sister, relatives, friends – that picture and all it meant to him then and there; and besides, just for a moment maybe, and as background to all that, swift realisation of the awful tragedy ending his life, ending his ship.

But whatever he saw, in that quiet lonely minute, it did not hold or unman him. Work – work – he must work to the bitter end.

Some saw him for the last time, down in the Engine-room, with Chief engineer Bell and Archie Frost and the other heroes, all toiling like men to keep the lights going and the pumps at work.

Others saw him, a few minutes before the end, on the Boat deck, our final and grandest sight of him, throwing deck chairs overboard to the unfortunates struggling in the water below.

Then, with a slow long slanting dive, the Titanic went down, giving to the sea her short-spanned life and with it the life of Thomas Andrews.

So died this noble man. We may hope that he lies, as indeed he might be proud to lie, in the great ship he had helped to fashion.

APPENDIX

At the request of the Family the publishers have inserted the following cables and letters which were received when the news of the disaster first became public.

Cable dated New York, 19th April, 1912, addressed to Mr. James Moore, Belfast

Interview Titanic’s officers. All unanimous Andrews heroic unto death, thinking only safety others. Extend heartfelt sympathy to all.

JAMES MONTGOMERY.Cable dated 21st April, 1912, received by the White Star Line in Liverpool from their Office in New York

After accident Andrews ascertained damage, advised passengers to put on heavy clothing and prepare to leave vessel. Many were sceptical about the seriousness of the damage, but impressed by Andrews’ knowledge and personality, followed his advice, and so saved their lives. He assisted many women and children to lifeboats. When last seen, officers say, he was throwing overboard deck chairs and other objects to people in the water, his chief concern the safety of everyone but himself.

Extract from letter written by Lord Pirrie to his sister, Mrs. Thomas Andrews, Sen

“A finer fellow than Tommie never lived, and by his death – unselfishly beautiful to the last – we are bereft of the strong young life upon which such reliance had come to be placed by us elders who loved and needed him.”

Copy of Letter received by Mrs. Thomas Andrews, Jun., from Mr. Bruce Ismay30 James Street,Liverpool, 31st May, 1912.

Dear Mrs. Andrews,

Forgive me for intruding upon your grief, but I feel I must send you a line to convey my most deep and sincere sympathy with you in the terrible loss you have suffered. It is impossible for me to express in words all I feel, or make you realise how truly sorry I am for you, or how my heart goes out to you. I knew your husband for many years, and had the highest regard for him, and looked upon him as a true friend. No one who had the pleasure of knowing him could fail to realise and appreciate his numerous good qualities and he will be sadly missed in his profession. Nobody did more for the White Star Line, or was more loyal to its interests than your good husband, and I always placed the utmost reliance on his judgment.

If we miss him and feel his loss so keenly, what your feelings must be I cannot think. Words at such a time are useless, but I could not help writing to you to tell you how truly deeply I feel for you in your grief and sorrow.

Yours sincerely,BRUCE ISMAY.Letter from Sir Horace Plunkett to Right Hon. Thomas AndrewsThe Plunkett House,Dublin, 19th April, 1912.

My Dear Andrews,

No act of friendship is so difficult as the letter of condolence upon the loss of one who is near and dear. Strive as we may to avoid vapid conventionality, we find ourselves drifting into reflections upon the course of nature, the cessation of suffering, the worse that might have been, and such offers of comfort to others which we are conscious would be of little help to ourselves. In writing to you and your wife on the sorrow of two worlds, which has fallen so heavily upon your home and family, I feel no such difficulty. There is no temptation to be conventional, but it is hard to express in words the very real consolation which will long be cherished by the wide circle of those now bitterly deploring the early death of one who was clearly marked out for a great career in the chief doing part of Irish life.

Of the worth of your son I need not speak to you – nothing I could say of his character or capacity could add to your pride in him. But you ought to know that we all feel how entirely to his own merits was due the extraordinary rapidity of his rise and the acknowledged certainty of his leadership in what Ulster stands for before the world. When I first saw him in the shipyard he was in a humble position, enjoying no advantage on account of your relationship to one of his employers. Even then, as on many subsequent occasions, I learned, or heard from my Irish fellow-workers, that this splendid son of yours had the best kind of public spirit – that which made you and Sinclair save the Recess Committee at its crisis.

It may be that the story of your poor boy’s death will never be told, but I seem to see it all. I have just come off the sister ship, whose captain was a personal friend, as was the old doctor who went with him to the Titanic. I have been often in the fog among the icebergs. I have heard, in over sixty voyages, many of those awful tales of the sea. I know enough to be aware that your son might easily have saved himself on grounds of public duty none could gainsay. What better witness could be found to tell the millions who would want and had a right to know why the great ship failed, and how her successors could be made, as she was believed to be, unsinkable? None of his breed could listen to such promptings of the lower self when the call came to show to what height the real man in him could rise. I think of him displaying the very highest quality of courage – the true heroism – without any of the stimulants which the glamour and prizes of battle supply – doing all he could for the women and children – and then going grimly and silently to his glorious grave.

So there is a bright side to the picture which you of his blood and his widow must try to share with his and your friends – with the thousands who will treasure his memory. It will help you in your bereavement, and that is why I intrude upon your sorrow with a longer letter than would suffice to tender to you and Mrs. Andrews and to all your family circle a tribute of heartfelt sympathy.

Pray accept this as coming not only from myself but also from those intimately associated with me in the Irish work which brought me, among other blessings, the friendship of men like yourself.

Believe me,Yours always,HORACE PLUNKETT.

1

In Belfast a memorial to Thomas Andrews and the other Belfast men who died in the wreck has been generously subscribed to by the citizens, and by the Queen’s Island workers. He is also included amongst those to whom a similar memorial is to be erected in Southampton. The Reform Club in Belfast is honouring his memory with a tablet.

2

It is interesting to note the circumstances which brought these two men together. Mr. Adams, who is now Professor of Political Theory and Institutions at Oxford, was then Superintendent of Statistics and Intelligence in the Irish Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction. He went to Andrews as the man most likely to give him reliable information and sound opinions upon certain industrial questions of interest to the Department. A peculiar value attaches to the high regard in which Thomas Andrews was held by this distinguished political and economic thinker.

3

Report of Mersey Commission, pp. 61 and 71.

4

Dr. W. F. N. O’Loughlin, Senior Surgeon of the White Star Line, a close friend of Andrews and his companion on many voyages. Some lines which he helped to write have been quoted. Soon after the ship struck he said to Miss Sloan – “child, things are very bad,” and went to his death bravely. His Assistant, Dr. T. E. Simpson, son of an eminent Belfast physician, and himself a physician of much promise, died with him.

5

Report of Mersey Commission, p. 29.

6

Mersey Commission Report; Sir William White’s letter to the Times, dated May 14th.

7

New York Herald, April 20th, 1912.

8

E.g., Mersey Commission Report, pp. 39-41.