Young Betram Dean walking a dog.
Bertram Dean was born on May 21, 1910 in London. His parents, Bertram Frank Dean and Eva Georgette Light, owned a pub in the British capital but planned to emigrate to the United States, to Wichita in Kansas. Members of their family were already living there. Their aim was to open a tobacco store.
Betram had a younger sister, Elizabeth Gladys Dean, nicknamed 'Millvina' who was born on February 2, 1912. She would later become one of the most famous, most populair and longest living Titanic survivors ever, while she was also officially the youngest passenger aboard the ship.
Titanic[]
Bertram boarded the Titanic with his parents and sister at Southampton on Wednesday April 10, 1912 as a Third Class passenger. He was soon to be two years old while Millvina was only a few weeks old. The Deans were originally to board the Adriatic but a coal strike caused the transfer of passengers to the new White Star liner which was then making its inaugural crossing.
The Deans were in their cabin when the liner struck an iceberg on the evening of April 14, 1912. Bertram Frank, awakened by the noise, came up on deck to find out what was happening. Alerted by the news, he went back down to his cabin and woke up his wife, ordering her to dress the two children warmly and get on the Boat Deck. Once there, it is difficult to establish with certainty the sequence of events. Although Eva Dean did embark on the same lifeboat as her daughter, we cannot however know whether the young Bertram Vere was also with his mother or whether, or was lost in the crowd and the confusion, and been in another lifeboat. In any case, the two children were saved, which was not the case for father Bertram Frank Dean who died in the sinking and whose body, subsequently, was probably never found.
Carpathia[]
Bertram was picked up by the RMS Carpathia where he found his mother and sister. They arrived together in New York on April 18 and were accommodated for a few weeks at Saint-Luc Hospital. Eva Dean, a widow and destitute, decided to return to the United Kingdom. She boarded the Adriatic with her two children. During the crossing, little Millvina was the object of great curiosity on the part of the passengers who competed to hold her in their arms. A reporter took photos of the baby at that time and published her and Bertram in the press. A collection was also organized on board the liner for the benefit of the Dean family.
Later life[]
Back in the UK, Eva moved in with her parents and raised Bertram and Millvina on disaster relief pensions. She remarried in 1920. Bertram attended King Edward's School in Southampton which could be afforded thanks to the relief money, and he took an early interest in the sinking of the Titanic.
Employed at a shipyard in Southampton, he met George William Beauchamp, another survivor of the shipwreck. He claimed to be at the same lifeboat as he was at the time Titanic was foundering. They formed a close bond and their friendship grew.
He married Dorothy Sinclair, who had her own links to the infamous liner: the music shop in Southampton that used to belong to a Titanic passenger who didn't survive the ordeal, was now owned by her father. This Titanic victim's name was Henry Price Hodges. Her father was Frank Edmund Sinclair who originated from Southampton.
Bertram Dean with a model of Titanic
His mother, Eva Dean, died in September 1975 at the age of 96.
Towards the end of his life, Bertram Dean took part in numerous events linked to the memory of the Titanic, granting talks and giving numerous lectures on the subject. He was several times brought to meet other survivors of the disaster in particular Eva Hart to share his experience and his knowledge. He died of pneumonia at the age of 81 on April 14, 1992, just 80 years after the sinking. He was cremated in Southampton.
His widowed wife Dorothy Maude Sinclair lived on until October 2001.
His sister Millvina, last survivor of the Titanic, died on May 31, 2009 at the age of 97.