Irish Aboard Titanic (47 page)

Elsewhere McElroy was bestriding a boat half-lowered to A deck, one hand clutching a fall rope, another wielding a gun. But his voice was his major weapon. At least that's the image conjured by the dramatic account of a First-Class passenger who was present at the last gasp. Seventeen-year-old Jack Thayer saw an armed McElroy attempting to quell panic at the last. His account was written privately for friends and family in 1940, more than a quarter of a century after the disaster. Then a mature 45, but with imperfect recall, Thayer wrote:

There was some disturbance in loading the last two forward starboard boats. A large crowd of men was pressing to get into them. No women were around as far as I could see. I saw Ismay, who had been assisting in the loading of the last boat, push his way into it. It was really every man for himself …

Purser H. W. McElroy, as brave and as fine a man as ever lived, was standing up in the next to last boat, loading it. Two men, I think they were dining room stewards, dropped into the boat from the deck above. As they jumped, he fired twice in the air. I do not believe they were hit, but they were quickly thrown out.

At some time there had been a lull in all this frenetic activity on the
Titanic
's boat deck. McElroy found himself with Dr O'Loughlin and other senior colleagues near the First-Class entrance. They shook hands, and then McElroy turned for a final handshake with others – Assistant Purser Reginald Barker was certainly there, and probably Assistant Purser Ernest Waldron King, a third Irishman in the group. Junior Surgeon John Simpson, yet another Hibernian, shook hands with the senior medic and the rest. They were saying to one another, ‘Goodbye, old man.'

Second Officer Charles Lightoller broke off his duties for a moment to also come over. He too, grasped hands with everyone and wished them all the best. They were, after all, all in the same boat. And it was sinking beneath them. Within minutes, the waves came.

McELROY – April 14th, on board R.M.S.
Titanic
, Hugh, beloved husband of Barbara McElroy, Springwood, Wexford.

(
Wicklow People
, 25 May 1912)

Hugh McElroy's family were originally from County Wexford and were staunchly Catholic. His parents had emigrated to Liverpool, where Hugh was born, like so many other Irish who went in search of work during the late nineteenth century when Merseyside was an engine of empire and the colonial trade. McElroy opted for a life at sea, and served three years on the troopship
Britannic
during the Boer War at the beginning of the new century. He had thirteen years with the White Star Line, serving on the
Majestic
and
Olympic
before transferring to the
Titanic
. In 1910 he married his long-time sweetheart, Barbara Mary Ennis, whom he had known growing up in Liverpool. She was the daughter of John J. Ennis, the passenger manager of the Allan Line of steamships in that city. The couple made their home in Tullacanna, Harperstown, County Wexford, when J. J. Ennis retired to his extensive family farm there. Barbara and Hugh were less than two years married when the
Titanic
sank, and had no children.

The Cork Examiner
reported on 18 April 1912:

Mr McElroy, the Chief Purser, was a Wexford man, and as fine a type as could be found. He was the Commodore Purser and only recently married the daughter of Captain Ennis of Wexford.

Mr John J. Ennis JP … came to reside with his two daughters at his home place in Springwood (Ballymitty, County Wexford). Last year, one of his daughters, Miss Barbara Ennis, was married to Mr Hugh McElroy, who belongs to a very good Liverpool family, and is brother to Fr McElroy, who lives close to Bootle. He had been a purser in the White Star Line for a quarter of a century.

The remains of the Chief Purser were destined to be recovered from the ocean by the
MacKay-Bennett
search vessel. He was wearing a white dress uniform – leading to the initial mistaken conclusion that it could be the body of a steward. From a fragment, they came up with the name of D. Lily, but in fact there was no one of this name on board. The body was that of Hugh McElroy.

No. 157. Male. Estimated age, 32. Dark Hair.

Clothing – Ship's uniform; white jacket; ship keys; 10 pence; 50 cents; fountain pen. Steward. Name – D. Lily.

The body was buried at sea. A scrap of paper in the name of his wife was also taken from the remains and later provided corroboration of his identity.

Percy Mitchell, the White Star Line's manager in Montreal, later signed a declaration to obtain the above effects from the coroner's officer of Halifax, Nova Scotia. He certified the name of the deceased as H. McElroy, Purser, SS
Titanic
, his residence as Southampton, England, his religion as Roman Catholic, and his nationality as Irish. The official name of the claimant, issued in the space provided, was ‘White Star Line'. It was perhaps appropriate. His white-clad corpse was the most senior member of crew to be recovered, and he had been one of their brightest lights for a long time, ever the embodiment of the White Star Line.

Dr J. C. H. Beaumont, for many years senior surgeon on the
Olympic
, claimed in his book
Ships and People
, published in 1927, that it was known that Purser McElroy had premonitions about the new liner prior to embarkation. He did not expand on the remark.

1911 census – ‘Springwood', Tullacanna, County Wexford.

John Ennis (75), widower, retired steamship manager …
Hugh Walter McElroy (36)
, purser. Wife Barbara Mary (34). Married less than one year.

Six servants, including domestics, farmhands, a stableman and professional nurse.

First-class house with ten rooms and 15 outlying farm buildings.

George ‘Paddy' McGough (36) Saved

Able Seaman.

From: Duncannon, County Wexford.

St George's Street, Southampton.

George McGough was a killer. He appears in the 1901 census as an inmate at HM Prison Winchester, fifteen miles from Southampton. He is the only George McGough born in Ireland in the entire census. The inmate is shown as a mariner.

George Francis McGough was born in Duncannon, County Wexford, Ireland, in 1875. His birthday, appropriately, was Bastille Day, 14 July – named for the storming of that prison. McGough is shown on the 1901 census, correctly, as aged 25. But eleven years later, aged 36, he is still claiming to be aged 25 when he signs on for the ill-fated RMS
Titanic
. Here AB George McGough is shown to be from Duncannon.

It's the same man – there was only one McGough family in Duncannon, and mariner George trimmed his age the better to sell himself at the hiring fair. Everyone did, but photographs from 1912 show McGough to be well-seasoned and no stripling. He has long since seen 25.

What caused George McGough, sometimes known affectionately to his shipmates as ‘Paddy' because of his Irish origins, to be banged up in prison? On 10 March 1900, Able Seaman George Francis McGough engaged in a drink-fuelled brawl aboard the dreary collier
Rustington
while that vessel was anchored off Santos, Brazil. The fight was with another member of crew, Welshman John Dwyer, who was shoved over a hatchway and fell headlong into the hold, dashing his brains out on the tough timbers some 26 feet below.

Twelve years and one day before the
Titanic
struck her iceberg, the
Barry Dock News
of Friday 13 April 1900 reported to its Cardiff readers:

It appears, from a letter written from Santos by the Chief Engineer of the Rustington on the 13th March … that on the previous Friday, March 9th, the two men, Dwyer and McGough had some words on board and McGough, it is alleged, seized Dwyer, and whether deliberately or not it is not yet known, threw him down the forehold of the ship, Dwyer falling on his head, and death resulted shortly afterwards.

The terrible occurrence was witnessed by four members of the crew, and these men, together with McGough, who was at once placed under arrest, are now on their way home to England on board a Royal Mail steamer and are expected to arrive in Southampton in a day or two when McGough will be placed on his trial on a charge of ‘wilful murder'. The deceased leaves a widow … and seven children.

George Francis McGough was committed for trial in Winchester. It emerged the prisoner and others had been ashore and got drunk. When McGough returned aboard, reeling and belligerent, ‘he wanted to fight everybody'. He bodily picked up Dwyer and flung him down the forehold. The victim was found with bleeding from his mouth and both ears, dying within minutes. The
South Wales Echo
of Tuesday 3 July 1900 reported McGough's conviction of manslaughter on the high seas, and sentence of only fifteen months' hard labour. So McGough went off for his short stint in jail and was ‘snap shotted' by the 1901 census. When released, he returned to the sea, sometimes using the alias George F. Bergin, instead of George F. McGough.

McGough's alternate name, for which he held a separate seaman's book, is shown on his marriage record as he wed a woman ten years his junior only months before the
Titanic
sailed. She was Beatrice Nellie Gannaway.

There is a certain irony in an interview with McGough (described as ‘George M. McGough') carried in
The New York Times
on 20 April 1912 before his return to England, where the seaman ‘complains that the crew of the
Titanic
were treated as prisoners by the White Star company'.

Irish Survivor's Story

Paddy McGough, an Irish seaman, according to the
Daily Mail
, said no-one was killed in the collision.

‘When I left the
Titanic
,' he said, ‘she was down to below the forecastle. I saw her back break, and I heard an explosion, either of her main steam-pipe, or of the boilers. I last saw Mr Murdoch, the first officer, when he was lowering No. 15 boat, and keeping back some Italians.

‘From the boat deck I distinctly saw the lights of another ship. I saw Captain Smith, at some distance, swimming towards another boat. When they reached out to help him, he shouted at them – “Look after yourselves men. Don't mind me. God bless you.” Then he threw up his hand and disappeared.'

(
Irish Independent
, 30 April 1912)

In an account reported by the
Irish News
on 20 May 1912, First-Class passenger May Futrelle declared:

One of the stewards, who relieved a sailor at the oar, couldn't row … I asked, not in anger, but in a sort of wonder, ‘Why is that man in this boat?'

The Irish sailor, mistaking my meaning, I suppose, said: ‘Madam, he wants to save his life as much as you do yours.'

Bertha Watt, writing in her Jefferson High School newspaper in 1917, said: ‘The fellow at the tiller was an Irishman. Paddy had no authority, he was just a deckhand.'

Crewman George Kemish, in a letter of June 1955, wrote:

I saw how desperate the situation was by now, all boats were away. We had been throwing deckchairs and anything movable overboard. I took a flying leap intending to grab the dangling boat falls and slither down them to the water, but I missed them. I swam until I got aboard that No. 9 or No. 11 boat, I don't know to this day what boat it was.

A deck hand named Paddy McGough took charge of her. She was overloaded dangerously. Picking up one or two more persons from the water would probably have meant drowning about 80. That was the number in her …

Well we drifted about until it started getting daylight. We could just see the berg. It had drifted on to the skyline with the help of the bump we gave it. There was a low icefield practically all round us. Paddy McGough suddenly gave a great shout – ‘Let us all pray to God, for there is a ship on the horizon and 'tis making for us.' Some of our crowd had already passed out but those who were still able did pray and cry. The old SS
Carpathia
picked us up about 7 a.m.

A manifest for the
Lapland
, arriving at New York from Antwerp on 15 January 1920, names seaman George McGough, born at Duncannon, with an address at 15 St George Street, Southampton – the same street address he gave on the
Titanic
. This was the same vessel on which he returned from New York in 1912. Perhaps because of his manslaughter conviction, he was not called to give evidence at either the American or British
Titanic
inquiries.

Later, in 1920, George McGough arrived as a crewman on the
Gothland
from La Coruña, Spain, and in December set foot in Seattle, Washington, from the
Steel Ranger
. On 1 April 1921, he was aboard the Atlantic transport liner
Minnekahda,
plying between Boston and New York. A year later, he sailed into New York aboard the
Oropesa
from Southampton. This time the Irishman is noted as having a scar on his cheek. He was last seen on a crew list for the Corbis, arriving in New York from Tampico, Mexico, in 1924. McGough was aged 50, Irish by race, an able seaman. But the entry has a line through it, striking it out. A note reads: ‘Deserted, Lisbon, October 19'.

Alfred Middleton (27) Lost

Assistant Electrician.

From: Ballisodare East, County Sligo.

Alfred spiritedly climbed access ladders inside the fourth, or aftermost, funnel in order to get a bird's eye view of the
Titanic
leaving Southampton on her maiden voyage, according to a letter home by his fellow assistant electrician Albert George Ervine. They were in no danger; the last funnel was for ventilation only. But it gave the
Titanic
symmetry and implied superiority over three-funnel steamers.

Someone was to repeat the funnel-climbing trick at Queenstown – poking a head above the parapet to watch the tenders bringing out steerage emigrants and their baggage. A few of those on the
Titanic'
s decks noticed the figure, and it gave watching passengers quite a shock, for it must have appeared like a sweep popping out from the top of a chimney. Many fancied, perhaps psychologically influenced by the smokestack association, that the face was ‘blackened'. They thought it was a daring stoker. Others commented that it was a bad omen. The face of a man wearing a flat cap does indeed appear at the top of the fourth funnel in a picture taken from the approaching tender
America
by a Mr Whyte of Queenstown.