Steward Collins Testimony: Is this family the Peacocks?

[N Alison]

So steward John Collins had this to say at the United States inquiry and I was wondering if he could have been talking of the Peacock family? See here: TIP | United States Senate Inquiry | Day 7 | Testimony of John Collins (Assistant First Class Galley Cook, SS Titanic)

Mr. COLLINS.
We went up to the deck when the word came. Then I met a companion of mine, a steward, and I asked him what number my boat was, and he said No. 16; so I went up to No. 16 boat, and I seen both firemen and sailors with their bags ready for No. 16 boat. I said to myself, "There is no chance there," and I ran back to the deck, ran to the port side on the saloon deck with another steward and a woman and two children, and the steward had one of the children in his arms and the woman was crying. I took the child off of the woman and made for one of the boats. Then the word came around from the starboard side there was a collapsible boat getting launched on the starboard side and that all women and children were to make for it. So me and another steward and the two children and the woman came around on that side, the starboard side, and when we got around there we saw then that it was forward. We saw the collapsible boat taken off of the saloon deck, and then the sailors and the firemen that were forward seen the ship's bow in the water and seen that she was intending to sink her bow, and they shouted out for all they were worth we were to go aft, and word came there was a boat getting launched, so we were told to go aft, and we were just turning around and making for the stern end when the wave washed us off the deck - washed us clear of it - and the child was washed out of my arms; and the wreckage and the people that was around me, they kept me down for at least two or three minutes under the water.

Mrs. Peacock was traveling with two small children under the age of five who didn't make it. The only other families with a mother with extremely small children and no husband were Palsson, Panula, Rice and Lefebvre but they all had four or more children, not two and at least some of the children were teenagers. Mrs. Edith Peacock could very well fit the description here with her two children. Anyway, thoughts?

 

[Arun Vajpey]

I ran back to the deck, ran to the port side on the saloon deck with another steward and a woman and two children, and the steward had one of the children in his arms and the woman was crying. I took the child off of the woman and made for one of the boats. Then the word came around from the starboard side there was a collapsible boat getting launched on the starboard side and that all women and children were to make for it. So me and another steward and the two children and the woman came around on that side, the starboard side, and when we got around there we saw then that it was forward. We saw the collapsible boat taken off of the saloon deck, and then the sailors and the firemen that were forward seen the ship's bow in the water and seen that she was intending to sink her bow, and they shouted out for all they were worth we were to go aft, and word came there was a boat getting launched, so we were told to go aft, and we were just turning around and making for the stern end when the wave washed us off the deck - washed us clear of it - and the child was washed out of my arms

John Collins was a scullion on board the Titanic and not a steward.

It is possible that he was talking about the Peacocks but IMO they were Alma Palsson and two of her 4 children. I believe that August Wennerstrom, who was also nearby, had charge of the other two. Unfortunately, all of them were washed away when the 'wave' generated by the sudden dip of the bow of the Titanic around 02:16 am it them. Of the whole group, only Collins and Wennerstrom survived; Alma Plasson, all 4 of her kids and the other steward were lost.

I have done some research on John Collins and have learned about a few other related statements that he made about the final moments of the Titanic from his daughter Mary McKee and other sources. While we cannot be certain, the impression that I got by collating with related information from other sorces was that they were Alma Palsson and her children. I thought so because on a couple of occasions, Mrs McKee referred to the "foreign lady" and her children whom her father was trying to help when the wave hit them.

Mind you, Mary McKee was very difficult to elicit any information from about her father's Titanic experiences, saying that she was fairly young when he died. It was not as though she did not want to talk about it but simply was not that interested in the Titanic per se. She kept referring me to her older brother then living in America who knew more about their father's Titanic experiences, but never got around to sending me his contact details. All that was in the pre-internet days.

I know that here on ET it suggests that it must have been Mrs Peacock and her children who Collins was trying to help. It might still have been, but that reference to the 'foreign lady' by his daughter made me think of the Palssons. Although Collins was Irish and the Peacocks from Cornwall, England, I doubt if would have thought of them as "foreign" in 1912.

 

[N Alison]

True. I did hear that Mrs. Palsson was seen on deck late in the sinking with her children trying to find a boat for them. It must have been difficult being a woman with four small children in trying to get up on deck in time.

 

[Arun Vajpey]

Irrespective of whether the people Collins was trying to help were the Palssons or the Peacocks, there is an interesting entry in the ET bio of Edith Peacock which might be suggestive. During my only meeting in 1985 with Alice Braithwaite, the niece of John Collins' fellow POW from Germany during WW1, she said something about Collins and the other steward briefly turned around and were heading towards "another lifeboat" being loaded further aft when the so-called Officer shooting incident happened. Looking at the rough notes that I had made in the back on an envelope back then, I got the impression that this incident was a few minutes before the wave hit them, by which time Collins had turned around again towards the bow and heading towards Collapsible A. It was then - ie a couple of minutes or more after the shooting, that he saw Murdoch washed overboard as he continued to work at freeing Collapsible A with the others. Moments later, Collins and the child were washed away as well.

Mrs B did not stress the 'turning around' thing and since she herself wrongly believed that there had been another lifeboat after Collapsible A, I really did not attach much importance to that part till decades later. But both Mrs Braithwaite then and Mrs McKee years later were quite certain that Collins knew Murdoch by sight (not personally) and was certain that the First Officer was still working on Collapsible A when the shooting incident occurred a bit further aft.

 

[N Alison]

Well that is interesting. Of course even if an officer killed himself there is no proof of who he was, just a claim that it was Murdoch. I shall have to look a bit more through the info on that. Cheers.

 

[Arun Vajpey]

Of course even if an officer killed himself there is no proof of who he was, just a claim that it was Murdoch.

There is more to it than that. If John Collins was telling the truth - and I have every reason to believe that he was - then it could NOT have been Murdoch. As I said, according to Collins, the shooting incident occurred a few minutes before he saw Murdoch - still working on Collapsible A - being knocked overboard by the wave and moments before John Collins himself and the child he was holding suffered a similar fate.

Collins and the unidentified steward had momentarily turned away from the activity around Collapsible A in the mistaken belief (so it seems) that there was another lifeboat available further aft. This was probably around 02:13 am at a guess. It was when Collins was thus heading away from Collapsible A that the shooting is supposed to have occurred. While no one involved in my research told me that John Collins actually identified that officer, there are a few suggestive comments that one can deduce it - again, provided Collis was telling the truth. In deciding that, we have to remember that unlike many other survivors, Collins did not say different things to different people.

• John Collins knew the only Scottish Officer on board - First Officer Murdoch - by sight and name, even though he was not personally acquanited with the senior man.
• Collins helped with the loading of Lifeboat #16 and hoped to be allowed to board it as one of the crew but an officer declined him permission to do so. According to Alice Braithwaite, Collins identified that officer as the "Senior Mate, the one next to the Captain".
• Collins was briefly heading aft away from the activity around Collapsible A when the shooting incident occurred. Collins identified the Officer involved as the same man who had stopped him from boarding Lifeboat #16 about an hour earlier.
• A few minutes after the shooting incident, Collins and the child were again going towards Collapsible A; Collins saw Murdoch and several others still trying to get that lifeboat free when the wave hit and washed most of them overboard.
• In his 1986 book The Night Lives On, Walter Lord just wondered if the officer involved was Murdoch. However, by the time he gave that TV interview in 1989 that I mentioned before, Lord and completely changed his mind and seemed to believe that it was Chief Officer Wilde, obviously next in seniority to Captain Smith. Lord did not say the reasons for that change of mind AFAIK.

 

[Thomas Krom]

• Collins helped with the loading of Lifeboat #16 and hoped to be allowed to board it as one of the crew but an officer declined him permission to do so. Accirding to Alice Braithwaite, Collins identified that officer as the "Senior Mate, the one next to the Captain".
• Collins was briefly heading aft away from the activity Collapsible A when the shooting incident occurred. Collins identified the Officer involved as the same man who had stopped him from boarding Lifeboat #16 about an hour earlier.

Able bodied seaman Frederick Charles Clench (1878-1930) recalled chief officer Wilde his presence at lifeboat number 16 too.

 

[Cpt Chester]

very interesting , many thanks

 

[brionboyles]

Murdoch WAS originally the Chief Officer, bumped down to First by the surprise, last-minute arrival/assignment of Wilde to position as Chief (according to "Sea Of Glass" (pp 56-58) which I find to be extraordinarily researched and thorough). Wilde was hardly aboard a day and didn't even formally assumed the role of Chief Officer until Apr. 9th, the day before sailing.
This might explain why a scullion (having little interaction with officers/superiors beyond the Victualling Dept.) would still believe Murdoch to be "Chief" that night. I doubt very seriously that Officer affairs would preoccupy a scullion's mind with so many tasks to be performed prior to sailing on the 10th.
Murdoch reportedly didn;t even have time to have his uniform sleeves altered to reflect his "demotion" (furthering confusion)... and several crew members continued to refer to Murdoch as the "Chief Officer" beyond this point, being both accustomed to Murdoch having that position and unaware he'd lost it.
Confusion abounds, yeah?

 

[Thomas Krom]

Murdoch WAS originally the Chief Officer, bumped down to First by the surprise, last-minute arrival/assignment of Wilde to position as Chief(according to "Sea Of Glass" which I find to be extraordinarily researched and thorough). Wilde was hardly aboard a day and didn't even formally assumed the role of Chief Officer until Apr. 9th, the day before sailing.
This might explain why a scullion (having little interaction with officers/superiors beyond the Victualling Dept.) would still believe Murdoch to be "Chief" that night. I doubt very seriously that Officer affairs would preoccupy a scullion's mind with so many tasks to be performed prior to sailing on the 10th.
Murdoch reportedly didn;t even have time to have his uniform sleeves altered to reflect his "demotion" (furthering confusion)... and several crew members continued to refer to him as the "Chief Officer" beyond this point, being both accustomed to Murdoch having that position and unaware he'd lost it.

While it is true that there was some slight confusion, it is different regarding scullion John Collins. As Arun mentioned:

• John Collins knew the only Scottish Officer on board - First Officer Murdoch - by sight and name, even though he was not personally acquanited with the senior man.

• Collins knew first officer Murdoch by sight and by name, and even called him the "Scots officer" in his later life too, considering John Collins came from Ulster (which is now part of Northern Ireland) it is believed that he remembered Murdoch due to him being Scottish.
• First officer Murdoch also never helped at loading or lowering lifeboat number 16, since except for the loading and lowering of lifeboat number 10 (which was lowered at 1:50), first officer Murdoch stayed on the starboard side of the ship.

From the evidence Arun supplied it seems to point that this officer Collins saw was chief officer Henry Tingle Wilde, and it seems the confusion of Murdoch his demotion from chief officer to first officer played no part in what Collins witnessed since he recognized Murdoch without the rank.

 

[Arun Vajpey]

This might explain why a scullion (having little interaction with officers/superiors beyond the Victualling Dept.) would still believe Murdoch to be "Chief" that night

With all due respect, I conducted research about scullion John Collins over almost 15 years that included speaking to a relative of his POW friend, Collins' own daughter etc. I have stressed in several places that AFAIK, Collins only knew Murdoch as the "Scots Officer" by sight and NOT personally. This not at all unusual as Collins was Irish and non-English British people in a predominantly English environment are often aware of each other even without interacting. His daughter Mary McKee, who was not all that interested in the Titanic herself, was quite certain that Collins knew about Murdoch the First Officer on board. Moreover, the Titanic was Collins' first ship and so he would not have known anything about the Officer reshuffle to admit Wilde before he (Collins) came on board himself. The impression that I got is that Collins knew the Scottish Officer - Murdoch - by sight and did not confuse him with anyone else.

Although he never mentioned Wilde by name (as far as I heard from other sources), he recognized that the senior Officer in charge near Lifeboat #16, and the one who felt that Collins (who had helped with loading that boat) was not required to actually board that boat, was the one "next to the Captain" ie different from his "Scottish Officer". But the thing that both Alice Braithwaite and Mary McKee stressed most was that Collins was trying to make his way to Collapsible A when the wave hit and Murdoch, along with several others, was knocked overboard. At that time, Murdoch and others will still trying to free the lifeboat.