George Frank Bailey was a Fireman onboard Titanic.
Background[]
George Frank Bailey was begotten by a Welsh father and an English mother. They were James Bailey and his wife Annie, with James stemming from Monmouthshire while Annie was from Gloucestershire. They had their son George in Newport, Wales on the 9th of April 1866. Three siblings had preceeded him: Elizabeth in 1859, James junior in 1861 and Mary in 1863. Alice Margaret became George’s first baby sister in 1867. William was next in 1869. They had moved to Monmouth in 1871, the same year that they gave birth to Louisa. They lived in a different street in the year that Amy was born, in 1873. Ellen was the last child to be produced, in 1876.
George, when grown up, made it happen with Eliza Martha Turnbull and it was Augustus 9, 1886 when they became husband and wife in the Saint Thomas The Apostle’s Church in Elson, Hampshire. Eliza was a former Gosport resident, her birthplace in Hampshire.
His namesake, George junior was their first child to be gifted life in 1886. Stephen Thomas followed in 1887, with a first girl, Eliza Alice, making the family bigger in 1889. In 1891, the Baileys lived in Alverstoke with Ellen Mabel to arrive in 1892.
In the meantime, George senior was a privateer for the Royal Monmouthshire Militia. On 16th of May 1895, he was officially installed as a Fireman for the Royal Navy onboard Victory II, with several other ships. He changed career on the 4th of May, 1905. During his service, he brought forth some more children.
William James unfortunately had become one of their two children to die very young. The same year that he appeared, 1894, they had to grieve over his death. His sister Sarah Ann, dropped in 1896, did survive, as well as Frank Alfred from 1902. In 1904 they were blessed with Arthur Francis, to lose him the next year. Their last, Frederick Joseph, lived on from his birth in 1906.
Between 1901 and 1911, George was away from home a lot of the time, doing his duties onboard civilian liners between 1905 and 1911. That last year, Eliza and the children were resident in Hardway, Gosport.
Titanic[]
George stayed in Bitterne, Southampton for a short while awaiting the day of April 10, the day that Titanic would go from Southampton on her Maiden Voyage when he could be one of her Firemen. He had put his name down on the crew list on April 6.
Titanic was perceived as an unsinkable ship due to her unique construction. This perception was thrown overboard on the night of April 14 and 15. On April 14, Titanic had a good day behind having done lots of miles. Her speed was even upped that day, despite the lurking jeopardy of icebergs. Later that night, one iceberg proved to be Titanic’s downfall, as the large lump of frozen seawater had been camouflaged by seemingly perfect weather conditions. It could only be picked out of the horizon by the lookout crew who were high up in the crow’s nest. They informed the bridge quickly and the helmsman turned the rudder to starboard to make Titanic go to portside, while the First Officer commanded the engineers to stop the engines. The leviathan however scraped her starboard hull against the mass underneath the water line. The tearing of the hull was over a great length. Water started pelting through the openings. Within minutes, tons were inside the ship.
Her captain and designer had both met up after catching a glimpse of the inflow of rushing seawater. Deisgner Thomas Andrews then found unmistakable evidence that his design was not strong enough to withstand the water. He suggested that the Titanic would drop down in less than 2 hours. With this as the outcome, the captain assembled his crew to order them to get the lifeboats geared up and ready, to take as many of the passengers of.
In the end, Titanic could not remain above the surface and the sea had taken her as a wreck at 2:20 A.M. Only 706 people came out of this ordeal with their lives. What George Frank Bailey did is lacking information yet to be found, but many were left frozen in the Atlantic waters when she sank. Some firemen were in the boats, but most didn’t make it. Others had stayed behind and perished deep in the belly of the ship, keeping at their post to give Titanic as much electricity until they no longer could. Among those, there were many Firemen who kept stoking to keep the lights on and contain power supply for the electricians. How George met his end, is unknown. There was no corpse to be picked from the sea.
After his death, Eliza made a new promise to a man who had also had lost his own spouse: Frederick William Churcher. Their wedding was in 1919. Never leaving Gosport, Eliza’s life went on until 1933.