Inger Sheil
Member
That doesn't explain why you placed the dinner with Parks in that specific area.
Why? Parks is one of the leading experts in the world on wireless technology of that era. He has written very well received articles on the subject, has been consulted for books, is working with a publisher towards a full-scale work on the subject, and has been interviewed for the making of documentaries. Have you seen the new Ghosts of the Abyss movie? Want to know whose hand it is you see working the wireless equipment? Not the actor who played Philips - that was Parks, a nice acknowledgement of the tremendous amount of work he had put in for his astonishing work on interpreting the data collated by Cameron's team during filming on the wreck. His work on reconstructing the 'silent room' has completely overturned our previous assumptions about this area of ship equipment.
My colleague, Jemma Hyder, has done a tremendous amount of work on wireless operators. She, too, has been in contact with George Sinclair, and can confirm his relationship with Bride. It is no wonder that this gentleman would seek to have contact with Parks, given his pre-eminence in the field.
You are showing extraordinary discourtesy to Parks by insinuating he may be lying. It doesn't reflect at all upon him, but it reflects very badly on you. That aside, the statement by a member of the family, read in conjuction (not isolation) with the other evidence, is very powerful indeed. I'll take their view over your subjective opinion any day of the week and twice on Sunday.
I suggest you pay attention to several previous posts (and, as an aside, familiarise yourself with the nature of the evidence. This was not a 'court', it was testimony given under oath at an inquiry.)
The photo could not have been taken en route to the Titanic as suggested by you (or your girlfriend), for reasons that have already been explained to you.
1.) Both Browne's original caption and the erroneous Eaton & Haas caption state that it was taken aboard the Adriatic. Brown's correct caption, placing it on the Adriatic, takes us back to the previous year.
2.)Bride said that he had not met Philips before they met for the first time in Belfast upon joining the Titanic.
3.) The Adriatic was not in Belfast.
4.) Philips' previous berth was not the Adriatic. He spent the latter half of 1911 on the Adriatic, and in early 1912 joined the Oceanic. It was from the Oceanic that he joined the Titanic. The Eaton & Haas photo suggesting that they were enjoying a smoke before tranferring to the Titanic is clearly in error in light of this information and Bride's testimony.
There is certainly obfuscation of the key facts here, and it's on your part. You simply will not accept the simple evidence that contradicts the Bride identification. This convoluted statement is an attempt to muddy the waters of what is essentially a very simple matter.
You have yet to produce any primary sources suggesting that it 'very may well be' - in fact, the evidence overwhelmingly mitgates against it.
What's to say it isn't them?
Bride's testmony.
Browne's caption.
The Oceanic and Titanic agreements that prove the Adriatic was not his previous ship
The view of Bride's family that it is NOT him in the photo
And, finally, a complete lack of contemporary primary sources that suggest that it is him.
As you point out, that's just your opinion. It certainly differs from mine, and I've done a lot of work on the identification of figures in photographs of mercantile navy in that era. In other words, a perceived physical resemblance is a matter of personal opinion, highly subjective, and worthless as evidence. What's more, you're approaching this with completely the wrong methodology. Researchers and historians don't determine a position and then find evidence, which is what you're doing here. You've already decided that's Bride, you're ignoring the evidence presented to you that it isn't, and you announce that you're going to keep on going until you find some facts that you like!
As I've said before, you are entitled to believe what you like. If you want to believe that the moon is made of a calcium-rich dairy product, the Titanic was switched with the Olympic, and that a 'feeling' counts more towards historical truth than primary sources, then that's your prerogative. It says an awful lot about your grasp of history and this subject, however. And what it says isn't positive.
