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THE TITANIC – 100 YEARS ON

Out of darkness

During the frantic hours between theRMS Titanic striking an iceberg andher sinking, the ship’s chief engineerand his team of men did their best

to give the passengers a fighting chance ofgetting off the stricken ship safely.

It’s widely believed that the efforts of themen, who lost their own lives, prevented thedeath toll of more than 1,500 from risingeven higher as passengers and crew perishedin the freezing north Atlantic.

The man in charge of the heroic team wasJoseph Bell, who was born and grew up atFarlam, near Brampton.

As the boat sank on April 15, 1912, he and his men stayed at their posts in theengine room and kept the power going, whichmeant that the lights stayed on, the lifeboatscould be operated and the wireless continuedto work.

Barrie Hodgson, of Winsford in Cheshire,whose middle name is Bell and who believeshe may be related to Joseph, has beencampaigning for a memorial in Cumbria tohonour his ancestor. He’s set up a website

about Joseph (josephbellengineer.wordpress.com) and has been working todraw attention to his bravery that night.

There are memorials to Joseph and hisfellow engineers in Southampton andLiverpool but although there were reportedlyplans, made in the wake of the disaster, for afountain dedicated to him in Stanwix,Carlisle, where his family was then living, it’sbelieved that nothing was done.

Barrie says that it’s “shameful” that there’sno Cumbrian memorial to Joseph, who actedso heroically.

“He [Joseph] said: ‘Look chaps, you caneither put your lifebelts on and go upstairsand take your chances or you can stay with us and try to keep the lights on and the radiogoing’. More or less to a man they stayedthere to keep things going until the boateventually sank.”

He added: “Without the functioning of the wireless, pumps and particularly thelights, the death toll would have undoubtedlybeen even higher.”

Ann Freer, her husband, Brian and their

children live in Farlam House, which was inthe Bell family from the 1800s and was hometo the young Joseph.

Ann has researched Joseph’s family tree aspart of investigations into the history of herhome. She discovered that Joseph’s motherdied shortly after having her fourth child,when Joseph was only seven.

Joseph himself was a married father-of-four when he took charge of the Titanic’sengines for its maiden voyage. Ann wondersif his first-hand experience of losing a parentwent through the engineer’s mind as the boatwas sinking.

“He was brought up without a motherand he knew he was leaving his family; hisyoungest was only born in 1908,” she says.

“He would have known, if he had time tothink of it, his family was going to grow upwithout a parent. You don’t know whetherthat went through his mind.

“He did what he had to do; he did notshirk his duty.”

Ann’s research has also shown that whenhe was growing up in north Cumbria, the

On April 15, the centenary of the sinking of the Titanic will be commemorated across the world.

Michaela Robinson-Tate finds out about a Cumbrian-born hero whose courage prevented

an even greater death toll and reveals other local links to the doomed vessel

Joseph Bell from Farlam

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The last photograph of RMS Titanic, leaving theport of Queenstown in Ireland on her way to NewYork on April 11 1912, four days before she sank

(Photo by Father Browne/Universal Images Group/Getty Images)

young Joseph would have had theopportunity to learn about boats.

His well-off farming family owned land atTalkin Tarn and his grandfather, also JosephBell, built a boathouse on the tarn, which isnow the Bird Observatory. Ann says thatbecause the family was affluent, it’sreasonable to assume that boats would havebeen kept there and that the young Josephwould have been able to take to the lake forhis first taste of sailing.

Joseph was born at Farlam House in April1861. His mother, Margaret, died in 1868.Following his wife’s death, Joseph’s father,John, moved with the children to Stanwix in

Carlisle. Joseph left to work as an apprentice engine fitter at RobertStephenson’s and Co at Newcastle, beginning the career that would culminate in his time on the Titanic.

Joseph married Maud Bates in 1893 and they had four children. He was also chief engineer on the Olympic, the Titanic’ssister ship.

After his death, Maud inherited the farm

at Farlam. She never lived there but familyrelatives ran the farm until the Sixties.

A new film recounts how Joseph and hismen attempted to save the stricken vessel.

Saving the Titanic, made by an Irish filmcompany, tells the story of the disaster frombelow deck and follows nine centralcharacters from the engineering crew as theywork among the huge, coal-fired furnacesheating the boiler and dynamos.

‘You can take your chances or you can stay with usand try to keep the lights on and the radio going’

The film, which had its world premiere inDublin, will be shown on the HistoryChannel as Heroes of the Titanic some timearound April 13 and its makers say it may goout on the BBC.

Joseph Bell wasn’t the only Cumbrianwho was intimately involved in Titanic’sstory.

Another victim of the disaster was asteward, Richard Charles Geddes, who was31 and also from the Stanwix area. He hadworked on the Olympic before transferring toher sister ship and is commemorated on thefamily gravestone at Stanwix Cemetery.

One of the key players in Titanic’s history,Thomas Henry Ismay, who was born inMaryport in 1837, learned his trade watchingthe activity at the port before going on to ownthe White Star Line, the shipping companywhich built and operated the Titanic.

His son, Bruce Ismay, commissioned theTitanic and was on board for her maidenvoyage. He survived and was later criticisedfor his actions that night, although evidencehas been produced since to restore hisreputation.

Biscuits made by Carr’s at Carlisle were onboard the Titanic, as was fabric, produced byStead McAlpin at Cummersdale, near Carlisle.

The pink and purple chintz design offlowers and grapes, printed on cotton, wouldhave been used on chairs, sofas and possiblycurtains in the ship’s state rooms. Artwork forthe design and some of the original fabric, allthat is left, kept at the Cummersdale DesignCollection, which is owned by the John LewisPartnership.

# Patrick Stokes reveals more about theIsmays in Family History on page 31.# For more on Barrie Hodgson’s campaign for a memorial in Cumbria to Joseph Bell, see www.josephbellengineer.wordpress.com

The memorialheadstone of Joseph

Bell in Farlam; right: Thomas Henry Ismay Left: Alan Cook, archivist at the Cummersdale Design

Collection, with the artwork and original sample of the'Grapes and Scrolls' chintz chosen for the state rooms

on the Titanic; above: the memorial headstone of Richard Charles Geddes in Stanwix Cemetery, Carlisle

Joseph Bell and,right, David Wilmot,

who plays him inSaving the Titanic;

left: the ship leavingSouthampton

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THE TITANIC – 100 YEARS ON!