Harold Phillimore
Harold Charles William Phillimore was part of Titanic's victualling crew, working as a steward.
Background[]
Harold Charles William Phillimore was born in Shirley, an area on the west of Southampton on the first of May, 1888. He was one of eight children born to mariner Henry Charles Phillimore from Shirley and his wife Caroline Grant, who originated from Corfe Castle in Dorset. Harold was brought up in Shirley and Portswood. He began his working life as a grocer in London Road in the city centre.
At the age of 20, he followed in his father’s footsteps and went to sea. The first ship he worked on was the Majestic. He later also served aboard Adriatic and Olympic. He was aboard the latter vessel for her delivery trip from Belfast to Southampton.
Titanic[]
At some point in the first decade of the twentieth century the Phillimore family moved to 73 Priory Road and this was where Harold was living when he joined Titanic as a Second Class Saloon Steward. Harold was 23 at the time.
On April 14, Titanic had an unfortunate meeting with an iceberg, and had no time to avoid scraping her hull open against the side. Tons of water came in and the ship couldn't stay afloat.
On April 15, when Titanic sank, Harold remained aboard till the very end. After the ship had gone into the deep waters and he was in the icey cold water, he somehow managed to clamber onto some flotsam from the ship and cling on there. Another man was with him but the freezing water overcame him and he died. Harold kept clinging on. If it hadn’t been for lifeboat 14 he would have surely perished too.
Fifth Officer Harold Lowe was in command of this lifeboat, the only one to go back to the place where Titanic had disappared, in an attempt to pull survivors from the water. Before that, he had distributed the passengers aboard his lifeboat into other boats and, along with his crew, rowed back into the sea of floating bodies. Sadly it turned out he waited too long, and he found very few alive. Harold saw the lifeboat approaching and managed to call out. When the little boat reached him someone held out an oar for him to grasp but he was so frozen by this time he couldn’t hold on. Eventually though, he was hauled into the boat, the last person to be rescued from the water. Of the four people Lowe managed to rescue from the water, only two survived, Harold was one of them.
Later life[]
After such a narrow escape, most people would give up on going to sea but Harold was made of sterner stuff. He married Mabel Podesta in 1913. She was also a Southampton native. Harold carried on working as a steward. During World War I he even volunteered to work on the transport ship SS Royal George and was awarded the General Service and Mercantile Marine War Medals for his efforts. When the war ended he went back to working as a bedroom steward on ships such as the Queen Mary and Berengaria. This work saw him rub shoulders with many of the rich and famous, including the Duke of Windsor (later Edward VIII) and music hall star Marie Lloyd.
Harold and Mabel had no children. Sadly, Mabel died in 1933. Two years later, Harold married Annie Carver from Hampshire. He was, by this time, in his early fifties and the couple did not have children. Harold finally retired in 1956 at the age of 68, and settled into a life on land at his home in Nutbeam Road, Eastleigh. He died on 26 April 1967, aged 79 and was buried in South Stoneham Cemetery. Annie survived him.
Trivia[]
James Cameron’s 1997 Titanic movie has the main character of Rose DeWitt Bukater cling on a piece of driftwood as well. It could be that Cameron was inspired by this survivor's story.
Sources[]
Special thanks and credits to Marie Keates for allowing me to use a large part of the information on her blog:
https://iwalkalone.co.uk/titanic-tales-from-st-denys-part-two/: Titanic tales from St Denys part two – I Walk Alone