Titanic Victim William T. Stead

Remembering Titanic Victim William T. Stead 100 Years Later

Posted on 02 April 2012, 10:01

With the 100th anniversary of the Titanic disaster coming up on April 15, it seems like an appropriate time to remember William T. Stead, one of the victims of the tragedy. A 62-year-old British journalist and pacifist, Stead was on his way to New York City to give a lecture on world peace at Carnegie Hall.  President William Howard Taft was also one of the speakers.

 Several survivors reported seeing Stead at various places in the 2 hours, 40 minutes that elapsed between the time the floating palace on its maiden voyage hit an iceberg and then made its plunge to the bottom of the North Atlantic.  All told of a very composed and calm man, one prepared to meet his death with courage and hope.  Frederick Seward, a 34-year-old New York lawyer, said that Stead was one of the few on deck when the iceberg was impacted.  “I saw him soon after and was thoroughly scared, but he preserved the most beautiful composure,” Seward, who boarded lifeboat number 7, recalled.  Andrew Cunningham, a 35-year-old English cabin steward serving Stead (below) and several other passengers, recalled that Stead had not been feeling well all day and had supper in his room.  “I did not see him again until after the accident,” Cunningham related. “Then I went to see all my passengers.  He had gone on deck but soon came back.  I said, ‘Mr. Stead, you’ll have to put on your life-belt.’ He said, ‘Cunningham, what is that for?’  I said, ‘You may need it.’ I put the belt over his head.  We bade each other good-bye, and that was the last I saw him.”

the story continues here on Michael Tibb's website White Crow Books.

The Journalist,The Titanic & Spiritualism

Britain's first great investigative journalist William Stead (5 July 1849 – 15 April 1912) is to be honoured  by The Chartered Institute of Journalists - to mark the 100th anniversary of his death aboard the Titanic.

Less well known is that William Stead was also a Spiritualist.

The Chartered Institute of Journalists is to honour Britain’s first investigative journalist - on the 100th anniversary of his death aboard the Titanic. President Norman Bartlett will lay a wreath at the memorial to W.T Stead on the Victoria Embankment in London on April 15.
William Thomas Stead was acknowledged as Britain’s leading campaigning and investigative journalist in the late 1800s, particularly for his work in exposing the white-slave trade and child sex abuse in London’s brothels by the nation’s upper classes. This resulted in the passing of the Criminal Amendment Act which raised the age of consent from 13 to 16.
As part of his campaign, Stead “bought” a chimney sweep’s 13-year-old daughter (Eliza Armstrong) for £5 which earned him a three-month prison sentence. He continued to edit the Pall Mall Gazette (which later merged into the Evening Standard) from his prison cell.

After his death on the Titanic, the Institute of Journalists launched an appeal to raise funds for a memorial. So much was raised that two memorials were erected, one opposite Temple Tube station and the other in Central Park, New York.

Stead was a pacifist and peace campaigner and started a Spiritualist quarterly  magazine  called Borderland.

 Before Stead boarded  The Titanic, he said 2 spiritualist friends had warned him the journey would not end well but Stead dismissed their fears stating that whatever was to come, he could not avoid fate.

Throughout his life he claimed he would either die by lynching or drowning. When the iceberg struck the Titanic in 1912, Stead is said to have assisted women and children into the lifeboats and then retired to the sitting room to smoke a cigar and read a book.