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While everyone is making references to the musicians on the Titanic, here’s what you don’t know about those brave men.
The ship’s 8 musicians were part of a 3 piece & 5 piece ensemble, booked through the company C. W & F. N Black in Liverpool. So they’re not on White Star Line’s payroll, they’re contract workers.
They boarded the Titanic at Southampton and stayed in 2nd class accomodations. As a seperate trio & quintet, they never played together until the night of the sinking.
The youngest was French cellist Roger Marie Bricoux, 20. The eldest was bandmaster Wallace Hartley, 33. Initially the band played music to soothe passengers as they boarded lifeboats.
Incidentally, Bricoux & pianist Theodore Ronald Bradley had previously served as musicians onboard the RMS Carparthia before being contracted to play for White Star Line. The Carparthia would go on to rescue over 700 survivors of the sinking.
Bricoux’s story doesn’t end with his passing away in the sinking. His death was never officially recorded in France, the French army had him declared a deserter, which wasn’t clarified until the year 2000.
As it became apparent that the ship would sink taking over a thousand with her, with some to perish in the frigid conditions of the North Atlantic. The band decided to play on while facing their imminent deaths.
The final song they played is uncertain, with varying survivors accounts, but it’s widely believed to be the hymn Nearer My God to Thee. The eight men were swept off the deck by sea water and all perished.
Several of the men’s remains were never discovered, Wallace Hartley & violinist John Law Hume, we’re discovered by the cable ship CS Mackay-Bennett. After the sinking, C. W & F. N Black tried to charge Hume’s father for the outstanding cost of his uniform.
There are two memorials to the musicians of the Titanic in Australia. At Broken Hill (1913) & Ballarat (1915)
