“Now tata, with fondest love to you both, Dada” – a Harlesden Titanic victim

Anyone who has watched television or looked at a newspaper over the past 10 days or so must by now be aware that the night of 14^th-15^th April is the 100^th anniversary of the sinking of the White Star liner R.M.S. Titanic.  As everyone knows, she hit an iceberg on her maiden voyage in 1912 and wasn’t carrying nearly enough lifeboats for the over 2,200 people on board, leaving some 1,500 people to drown or die of hypothermia (the precise figures of both drowned and saved are disputed.)

We recently discovered that Brent has a Titanic connection.  One of the men on board was George Arthur Beedem, a 34-year-old 2^nd Class bedroom steward.  Beedem had been born in Portsmouth, but had been living at 81 Shrewsbury Road, Harlesden, for some time.  He was a seat holder at Christ Church Reformed Episcopal Church, Harlesden where, according to the Willesden Chronicle, he had been “held in very high esteem … for many years.”  His wife, who had the initials L.E., is listed in Kelly’s Directory as a wardrobe dealer.

When he signed on to Titanic on 4th April 1912 (only 10 days before she hit the iceberg, which gives us an idea of how unfamiliar many of the crew must have been with the ship), he spelled Harlesden as “Harlesdon.”  He had been on Titanic’s sister ship Olympic prior to Titanic, so at least he knew the basic layout of Titanic, unlike many other crew members.  As a bedroom steward he was paid monthly wages of £3 15s, roughly equivalent to £347.50 today.

The only material we have on Beedem is the report of his death in the Willesden Chronicle, and his name in the Kelly’s Directories, but his letters have survived. They were published 15 or so years ago in a book called Titanic Voices.  Extracts from several of them can be read on the Internet.

Between 1907 and 1912 White Star’s victualling superintendent was John Bartholomew, who had been with the company since 1873.  George Beedem was apparently a protegé of Bartholomew.  Beedem helped prepare the ship for its maiden voyage and, as mentioned, wrote several letters from the ship.

Writing to his mother before the ship sailed he said “Mr B [Bartholomew] keeps me in work.  I have not seen him.  I went to the office last Saturday but his head man told me I was to go on the Titanic on Thursday.”  In a postscript he conjectured that “Mr B will come with us this trip I expect.”  On 5^th April he wrote “I am standing by the ship today to see she doesn’t run away. Nobody has been working on her being ‘Good Friday’ so I have a day’s pay to come.”  He had still not been paid four days later, when he wrote “I have not been paid for Good Friday there were only 10 of us working & none have been paid through some fool leaving us off the list.”

Beedem’s wife was ill and he was worried about her.  On the 9th, the day before Titanic sailed, he wrote her a letter saying  “I’m feeling depressed, there’s nothing to do on board, how I’d like to see this bloody ship at the bottom of the sea!” Beedem’s last letter was posted on 11^th April from Queenstown (now Cobh) in Ireland, the last port Titanic called at.   It is addressed to his family – “my dear little treasures.”  He says “we had a more decent crowd on board this time although not so many [than on Olympic, presumably]. There is a lot to come on at Queenstown I think, the more the merrier.” After describing Titanic’s near-collision at Southampton with the American steamer New York, which had broken loose from her moorings after being sucked into Titanic’s powerful wake, he ends his letter “now tata, glad you liked the pictures and I suppose those chocolate eggs have all disappeared down that great big hole.  With fondest love to you both, Dada.”  The whole letter can be read here.

Beedem died in the sinking, one of 670 out of 862 male crew members to do so (using figures calculated by Walter Lord, who wrote the famous account A Night to Remember in the 1950s and another book, The Night Lives On, more recently.)  Beedem’s body, if recovered, was never identified.  The Willesden Chronicle wrote on 26^th April 1912 that he left “a widow and family to mourn his loss.”

Bartholomew, his boss, had not travelled on Titanic.  After the disaster he met the Lapland, carrying the surviving crew, at Plymouth.  Meanwhile, in Harlesden, local people raised money for the victims.  A list was published in the Willesden Chronicle on 3^rd May 1912.  Willesden Urban District Council’s “Councillors, Staff and employees” donated £16/14/9d, Leveridge & Company, general printers, of St. Thomas’s Road, Harlesden gave 10/6d, someone giving only the initials “G.B.” gave £5, John S. Crone, J.P., a  local doctor and editor of The Irish Book Lover from 1909-1925, gave £1/1- and a Miss C. Harvey raised 10/-. Mrs. Beedem remained at 81 Shrewsbury Road until 1914-5, but the address is no longer listed in any Kelly’s Directory thereafter.

Brent also has a couple of Lusitania connections, but that is another story.

Posted by Malcolm