Alfred Albert White was a Greaser on the Titanic.
Background[]
Alfred Albert White was the name of man who was brought forth by the pair of Alfred White and Charlotte Harriett Light, wife of Alfred senior since 1879. In 1880, their son saw the light on March 25. They brought him to the Saint Mary’s Parish Church on May 16, to undergo the sprinkling ritual. If only they could have seen the future, they would see their adult son cope with much more water.
Alfred would have the same birthplace as his two elders: Southampton. The town got several more new residents later, as Alfred was the eldest sibling of six other Whites. It was an equal mix of boys and girls, with Charlotte Annie as the second to be given life in 1881. Emily Harriett was added in 1884, with Edwin making his appearance in 1887, before Henry James sprung into life in 1889. The year 1892 saw Kate Ellen appear and Margaret Louisa emerged in 1893.
The senior Mr. White brought the bacon home by reconditioning wooden objects using shellac. Alfred junior wouldn’t stay on land forever. He found his feet in the streams beyond the shallows. When he actually was riding on the shipping lanes can only be guessed.
On September 29, 1902, Alfred declared his intention to always bring happiness into the life of his fellow Sontonian Florence Ada Watson, who had started her first days of life in this town as Florence Ada Powell. She also pledged her loyalty to Alfred at the town’s Saint James’ Church and it was her second entrance into holy matrimony. The first had lasted only one year. Tragically, Alfred senior would never meet her or couldn’t attend the wedding. Alfred’s father had passed into the eternal in April 18 that year.
Florence’ former love was also connected to the saline sagars, as he was a matlow. His name was Frederick William Watson, but in March that year, he splashed around in the Arabic sea close to the city of Bombay, India, to inhale too much water and perish.
As the former pair didn’t have the time to form any progeniture, Florence now had a new chance with Alfred.
Titanic[]
White was lastly seen back from a trip with the Oceanic when he made his way to the Southampton docks to add another name to the Engineering Crew list of the fabled Titanic, a fantastic new ocean steamer, which was lauded, being the extra special sistership of the Olympic. She would be new an improved. Her departure date would be April 10. White gave his information on April 6 and was thus contracted, as a Greaser.
Titanic’s station was the New Deep Water Open Dock in Southampton harbor. After some blows on the whistle shortly after 12 o’clock, every would needed to be onboard or she would leave without them. Several men were indeed late and missed the boat. Not White however. He could have been down in the Engine Room or Turbine Room but most of all, he was on duty in the Electric Room to nurture the devices that made up the engine. The central function of a Greaser would be to inject components with oil and soap as to prevend them from grating. The substance would have to be annointed regularly. Electricians and Engineers would also ask the Greasers to perform other tasks.
Greasers had their own accomodations and mess, seperated from the other Engineering Crew. Their bunks were situated on a large chunk of the starboard side of G-Deck in the bow, opposite the Leading Firemen, who oversaw the gauges and the shovelmen in the Boiler Rooms. The C-Deck starboard side in the bow was where their Mess was, just in front of the Firemen's Mess. A Greaser would make the same in a month as a Leading Fireman, £6, 10s. Alfred White worked closely with Harland & Wolff’s Engine Fitter and Guarantee Group member Anthony Wood or ‘Archie’ Frost. According to papers of shipbuilder Thomas Andrews’ family, had once been saved from a fatal accident by Mr. Andrews, during Titanic’s construction. Mr. Frost had tried to remain near Andrews ever since, ‘hoping to one day make him proud of the life he had saved.”
April 14-15[]
Titanic brought more boilers online on the 14th of April. Her owners and commanders wanted to test how well she coped with bigger ships and they could make headlines. On top of that, First Class passengers put wagers on the distance that the ship would sail on a day so it was a fun challenge to predict the miles. With 22,5 knots, Titanic was covering ever more ground, while having cold, but composed atmospheric pressure above the pelagic. This was deceitful however, as the people onboard the ship forgot that she was just a drop in the ocean.
This became painfully clear later that night. Alfred was on one of the forward decks in the bow at 11:40 P.M, awaiting to be replaced on watch, when something was flicked over the ship’s side and a tearing of seams occured below the waterline occured. White must have found out soon enough that this was an iceberg and bits and pieces had scattered on the Forward Well Deck. White checked for more scoures over the part that was above the water line. He held a lantarn in his hand, but could not discover anything out of the ordinary.
The disturbance hadn’t nerved him in any way as he was still making coffee with colleagues after he had gone down to the Electric Room an hour later. White went to the First Class Dining Saloon to get hot water when he was asked by Steward James Johnstone what the matter was down below and if he could check the Engine Room for him and report back. White did so and said that things got serious.
White and Frost were part of the team that kept the lights and winches working up to the last few minutes. The men in the engine rooms never left their posts, even after Thomas Andrews had suggested, early in the crisis, that if they stayed too long, there would be no chance for any of them to reach the lifeboats or even to reach the top decks and have some small possibility of swimming away to floating debris. According to the Andrews family’s oral history, as presented, in part, by the producer of 'A Night to Remember', Mr Bill MacQuitty, the men replied, ‘We’ll stay as long as we can.”
Chief Engineer Bell, their boss, had come with bad news at 1:40 A.M. At that moment, Alfred was in the Electric Room. Bell told his subordinates that bulkhead number 6 had caved in. From then on, it started to look dismal. He was indented, perhaps by Bell, to climb up on the ladder that would go all the way up to the fourth, dummy funnel and take in all the scenes.
Although White later shared how he was near the captain close the bridge, to hear him say: “Well boys, it’s every man for himself now”, he’s also been placed still looking over the top of the last funnel as the ship broke in two to miraculously escape from that.
By then the smokestack had fallen to roll over the break-away stern section’s port side. White did not remember the fall, or how he ended up in the water, or how he got picked up by his boat. Titanic stood tall with half her body out of the water like a forageing duck, a bustle of people were standing on the Poop Deck to await the unavoidable, which came two minutes later.
As 1503 people were left for dead, the two large hull parts of Titanic chucked down into the dark zones. Alfred owed his life in the seat of lifeboat 4 to the insistance of Madeleine Astor, who was adament that they should go back and look for strugglers, but might also have wanted to find her husband J.J. Astor, the richest man that was aboard. Regrettably, he was not found, but White was alive, along with a mixed bunch of a sailor, a Third and Second Class passenger, Trimmers, another greaser, a lamp trimmer, storekeeper and two stewards, who were all pulled into boat 4. Some of them still succombed moments later.
After the sinking[]
The RMS Carpathia tended for the survivors. She had made a mad dash to the Titanic's location when the Titanic's wireless buzzed through the air sending distress signals. The Carpathia's marconi operator needed only a few words to convince her always quick-thinking captain, Arthur Rostron, to start a rescue mission. They were 53 miles away from Titanic but promised to come for her. Carpathia was on the scene by 4:00 A.M. but needed some hours to collect the boats.
Alfred’s original boat to be rescued in was declared to be Collapsible A, but he simply had been mistakenly given a false story by a writer on the Carpathia who he had talked to. A misunderstanding had lead to the fabrication as White only told the man what he was told by Steward Edward Brown, who was on deck with him on the Carpathia and was in boat A himself.
On April 18, Carpathia docked at Pier 54 in New York with the Titanic survivors. They arrived after dark and were greeted by a group of thousands that wanted to know everything about the drama, but most of all, if their loved ones, acquaintances, family, friends were safe.
Alfred was not asked by either the American or British Inquiry to comment on his whereabouts, actions and whatever he saw. His account could have been important to help the investigation, even though it was a whitewash to clear White Star Line from blame. White landed in Plymouth on the 25th of April.
On June 21, he wrote a letter to the family of the wife of First Electrician William Henry Marsh Parr. William Parr was not a survivor of the sinking and Alfred had known him well. M. Langley, Parr's brother-in-law, was also the Assistant Manager of the Electrical Department of Harland & Wolff, the shipyard that had built Titanic.
Later life[]
Alfred and Florence weren’t done with the formation of new life. Since 1913, they also had a son, who also carried the name of one parent: another Alfred. He would remain his only boy, as Maud Emily was dropped in 1914.
The Titanic disaster must have made some impression on Alfred, but he hadn’t tasted enough salt water and still perpetuated in traversing on ocean liner as a crewman for more years. The First World War had another intimate encounter with death in store for him, when he was on the overloaded SS Aragon, a soldier-carrying ship, which was was taken under fire by by the German submarine and minelayer UC-34. It sent their typical, cylindrical projectiles into her port side. Aragon went down leaning to starboard side, claiming the lives of 600 out of 2700, but not Alfred’s.
He went on to produce one more child with Florence in 1918: She was Mildred Eveline. Southampton was a place of moarn following the tragedy in 1912, but decades later, love bloomed as well and it made the town seem a lot smaller. Titanic’s Fireman Walter Hurst also had managed to come out of the catasthrope alive on Collapsible B. His son Arthur Thomas Hurst, was later attached by law to Mildred White, in 1936.
In 1921, White was a brew seller and had his own cafe in Southampton, still the place where he lived till his end.
On 7 January 1922, his artery problems got the better of him and took him down, making him a very young man to have deceased, at 44 years old.
His resting place became the Old Common Cemetery. Florence kept her loyalty to both Alfred and Southampton and carried on be ensconced there until 1965, her last year.
Alfred’s comments, insight and involvement in Titanic’s demise were largely overlooked by Titanic researchers and historians, who were clearly too stubborn to realise that Titanic hadn’t sunk intact. This changed in 1991 when two researchers of the Titanic, Bill MacQuitty, the Irish producer of 'Night to Remember', the famous 1958 film based on the similiarly named book by Walter Lord, who also worked with Bill and historian Charles Pellegrino in the 1990s. They had digged up that letter that letter from Alfred had written the family of the wife of First Electrician William Henry Marsh Parr. He was not a survivor of the sinking.
Her youngest 4 children all saw the new decennium and had gone well beyond 80 years. The youngest three daughters were all espoused. Both Doris and Mildred departed from earth in 2002, Alfred junior’s life was concluded by 2005 and Maud Emily exceeded a century as she had walked all the way into the year 2015.
Popular Culture[]
The 2012 dramadocu ‘Saving the Titanic’ dedicates the story of all the men down below on the heaviest and dirtiest jobs, including the Engineers, Electricians, Leading Firemen, Firemen, Trimmers and Greasers, during the voyage and the peril that ensued. Douglas Rankine was cast as Alfred White, a Greaser who had no head for heights. The actor looks totally different than the real Alfred White, but in the movie, he played a significant part in the tragedy that unfolded.
He overcame his fear well after 2:00 A.M, when Chief Engineer Bell sent him up the ladder of the dummy funnel to report every detail of what he saw unfolding beneath him. He instilled courage in himself by singing ‘Twinkle twinkle, little star’. It doesn’t show what he saw, but anyone familiar with the history of Titanic’s sinking can picture scenes of the Collapsibles being probably caught in the deluge that crashed over the ship’s forward gunwales.
As the ship made her lurge, White took it all in and then hurriedly stepped down the ladder again.
The beginning of the docufilm shows White at the aftermath of the sinking, in Southampton, having measurements taken by a priest in a room of the building where the British Inquiry was held, which was not historically accurate, but at least he was correctly shown as survivor. He advises Frederick Barrett to count his money, as the latter receives wage, as White knows that a few days of their pay was cut, but Barrett sharply returns to thim that he should be grateful to get away with his life.