The Band That Played On (4 page)

And the band was bravely playing

The song of cross and crown

—“Nearer, My God, to Thee”

As the ship went down.

On May 18 bandleader Wallace Hartley’s body was brought back to his Lancashire birthplace of Colne to be buried in the family vault alongside his two brothers who had died in infancy. The funeral was an event of epic proportions with crowds of thirty to forty thousand thronging the streets; photographs of the procession and burial were published around the world. Just as the band had given the victims of the sinking a human face, so Hartley gave a face to the band. He was the only one of the eight whose remains would return home.

His parents were inundated with letters from members of the public who claimed to share their grief. A typical letter read: “I desire to congratulate you sincerely on being the mother of a hero and a gentleman whose name—many years after yours and mine are forgotten—will bring a thrill of pride wherever Englishmen are gathered. The knowledge that your dear son died at his post giving comfort and consolation to hundreds of others must ever be a comforting and consoling memory to you.” Others wanted souvenirs of a man they had never met—photographs, samples of his handwriting, copies of music he had touched, something he had owned.

Six days later the Orchestral Association mounted a memorial concert for the musicians at London’s Royal Albert Hall. It featured a five-hundred-strong orchestra composed of members of London’s seven main orchestras—the Philharmonic, the Queen’s Hall, the London Symphony, the New Symphony, the Beecham Symphony, the Royal Opera, and the London Opera House. Conductors included Thomas Beecham, Henry Wood, and composer Edward Elgar. Ada Crossley, an Australian soprano, sang a solo.

A century later the
Titanic
musicians’ story is still known, not through newspaper accounts or even history books but through the movies
Titanic
(1953),
A Night to Remember
(1958), and
Titanic
(1997).
Titanic
societies keep their names alive as do excellent Web sites such as
www.encyclopedia-Titanica.org
and
www.Titanic-Titanic.com
. In 1997 musician Ian Whitcomb recorded an album of tunes the band would have played and was nominated for a Grammy for his comprehensive sleeve notes. His musicians for the project were named the White Star Orchestra.

Yet despite widespread recognition of the event, we appear to know as much about the musicians as was known in 1912. A book published that year had asked: “What about the bandsmen? Who were they? This question was asked again and again by all who read the story of the
Titanic
’s sinking and of how the brave musicians played to the last, keeping up the courage of those who were obliged to go down with the ship. Many efforts were made to find out who the men were, but little was made public.” Although because of the Internet it’s now much easier to retrieve contemporary accounts of the band’s actions, the members still remain a ghostly presence. The same photographs are used repetitively, the same rumors are circulated, and other than Wallace Hartley, who entered the
Oxford Dictionary of British Biography
in 2010, the band members remain anonymous early-twentieth-century figures.

It’s not hard to determine why this is so. These were not famous performers who had given interviews, filled in questionnaires, and been profiled during their lifetimes. None of them had written songs providing insights into their concerns or even, as far as we know, made recordings. For the most part, whatever diaries and letters they may have left behind have been lost over the years. They were famous for their deaths, not their lives. As a result, we know a lot about how they spent their last moments on the
Titanic
, but almost nothing about how they came to be there.

The
Titanic
sailed out of Southampton but was registered in Liverpool. It was from an office in Liverpool that they were hired, at a Liverpool outfitter that they had their bandsmen’s uniforms adapted for the White Star Line, and from Liverpool stations that most of them left for what promised to be the journey of a lifetime. And so it is to Liverpool that we have to return to start the search for the band that played on.

2
“T
HE
W
ORLD’S
G
REATEST
L
INER.
”

I
t was from their third-floor office at 14 Castle Street, Liverpool, that two Manchester-born brothers, Charles William and Frederick Nixon Black, planned the
Titanic
’s music. We’ll never discover what guided their choices or how they approached each instrumentalist, but we know that they had hundreds of players on their books, that they had both played for professional orchestras, and that their task was to put together two impressive groups of musicians appropriate for a first-class passenger list drawn from the top echelon of European and American society.

Gore’s Liverpool Directory showing C. W. & F. N. Black at 14 Castle Street.

No one could have known that they would be sending the eight musicians to their deaths by booking them. After all, the
Titanic
was the newest, safest, and most prestigious ship on the seas. Evidence suggests that the musicians may have been enticed by an above-average fee, and the tips alone would have made the trip worth taking. They were contracted only for the maiden voyage. These men from comparatively modest homes would be mingling with some of the world’s richest and most powerful people in an ambience of unparalleled luxury on a voyage that would make history.

The Blacks were to emerge as villains of the piece. The tragedy exposed their unfair business practices and lack of consideration for their employees’ welfare. The ire of the Amalgamated Musicians’ Union had already been aroused when the Blacks became sole agents for all the major shipping lines, and the fate of the
Titanic
players simply gave the union more ammunition. They also revealed themselves as either heartless, thoughtless, or both, by asking one father to pay up for his son’s outstanding tailoring bill. The garment that had been altered was the uniform he died in.

Although the Blacks argued for their innocence in the press, they couldn’t shed the reputation of callousness. Three of the bereaved fathers took them to court, and the AMU continued to campaign against them, eventually advising musicians either to stay with the AMU and not work for the Blacks or to work for the Blacks and relinquish union membership. The brothers, in turn, tried to make amends by raising money for the dependents of the
Titanic
’s band and making a show of their good deeds.

Whether it was because of their notoriety, or simply because agents weren’t part of polite society, the Black brothers lived and died almost without a trace. To
Titanic
historians they have simply been C. W. & F. N. Black, the name under which they traded. No one has ever fleshed them out or discovered a photograph of them. When they died within a year of each other in the 1940s, their passing wasn’t even noted in their local newspaper. Their archives, which would have been of such value to researchers, must have been destroyed when the company ceased trading during World War II. They were never interviewed about their crucial role in the
Titanic
story.

Castle Street had always been close to Liverpool’s center of power. In medieval times it was the street that connected the castle with the market and the river with the Pool, an area where several waterways converged into a docking area for ships. In the late eighteenth century the present town hall was built at one end. In the first decade of the twentieth century, when the Blacks began renting their offices, it was within walking distance of the headquarters of two of the greatest shipping lines of the era: Cunard on Water Street and White Star on James Street. It was also close to the newly completed landmark Royal Liver Building at the Pierhead. All of the buildings in the area announced confidence, wealth, and dominion. On the ground floor of number 14 was the Bank of British West Africa and the vice consular office for Salvador.

Albion House, also known as the White Star Building, Liverpool.

Nineteenth-century British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli once described Liverpool as the Empire’s second city. Internationally it was beaten only by London in terms of the value of its sea trade. New York was third. In 1908 almost 26,000 vessels used the 418 acres of docks that spread along the Mersey. A significant proportion of its population— from the owners of boardinghouses and makers of rope to dockworkers, bar stewards, boatbuilders, and travel agents—were dependent on sea traffic. In 1906 the port listed 1,305 steamships and 914 sailing ships in its register.

Castle Street, Liverpool, looking toward Town Hall. The Blacks’ former office was in the building on the left.

While the port of London handled more cargo, Liverpool dealt with more passengers. Since 1825 almost 56 percent of all people leaving Britain had embarked at Liverpool, and a surge in numbers after 1905 pushed its share to over 60 percent. The bonanza came from a wave of emigration that was only halted by the outbreak of World War I.