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1) A ship's captain such as 'E.J.' was ultimately responsible for a floating town. Plenty of things could happen on a single voyage. Early in 1910, Adriatic was leaving her New York pier when one of the ship’s stewards heard a revolver shot.
2) One of the second class staterooms was locked from the inside and the ship’s crew forced it open to find a passenger ‘lying on the deck with a bullet wound in the right temple’. Captain Smith wrote: ‘...The ship’s surgeon was called and pronounced life extinct’.
3) Edward Ettridge, who had adopted the stage name ‘Ed Beppo’ for his English music hall performances, had shot himself in another passenger’s stateroom, that of Alfred Burgess. He was, briefly and understandably, mistaken for Burgess.
4) Smith signed in the ship’s log that Ettridge had died of a ‘bullet wound in right temple’, countersigned by Purser McElroy and Chief Surgeon William O’Loughlin. (See: 'The "Big Four" of the White Star Fleet: Celtic, Cedric, Baltic & Adriatic' / History Press; 2016.)
5) On the same round voyage, there were a number of crew who either deserted, ‘failed to join’ or ‘left by consent’ at Southampton. After the westbound crossing, Sixth Engineer Arthur Ward had to remain in New York due to ‘suspected appendicitis’.
6) Then there was the case of a trimmer who had to be ‘fined five shillings for disobedience to lawful commands’. He admitted ‘refusing to obey orders, on the plea that the duty took him to the engine room, and that he signed articles to work in the stokehold only’.
7) Another trimmer was reported ‘off duty owing to an injury to his right great toe, caused by a piece of coal falling on the foot’. And they had to take on additional victualling staff to make up for an unexpected number of extra passengers.
8) Two years later, Captain Smith was promoted to Titanic. He's pictured standing on the boat deck near the bridge. (I'Illustration, April 1912) @btsmembership @SocietyTitanic @Belfast_Titanic @fitch_tad @TitanicOfficers @TitanicNewYork @RMSTitanicOff @TheDeemeister
