Henry Sleeper Harper (March 11th, 1864 – March 1st, 1944) and his wife Myra boarded the Titanic at Cherbourg, returning from a five-month-long tour in Egypt and Sudan. They were occupying First-Class cabin D-33. Accompanying the Harpers was Hammad Hassab (an Egyptian dragoman, or interpreter whom Henry had hired in Egypt, during their stop in Cairo because Hassab joked to Harper that "he wanted to see the country all the crazy Americans came from".) and Henry's prized Pekingese dog, Sun Yat Sen. Hassab was booked in D-49. Shortly after boarding the ship, Henry fell ill with tonsilitis and therefore spent much of his time in the cabin.
On the night of the sinking Henry and Myra Harper were fast asleep in their stateroom. Henry was awakened by a grinding noise, and looked out of his porthole to see an "iceberg only a few feet away, apparently racing aft at high speed and crumbling as it went." Having narrowly escaped the sinking of the SS Canima of the Cromwell Line in 1883, he knew the danger this incident put their ship in and insisted that Myra dressed at once and went upstairs. The ship's surgeon, Dr. William Francis Norman O'Loughlin, who visited Harper prior, first told him to undress and return to his bed, but soon returned to tell him that the "trunks were floating around" in the cargo hold and that they "may as well go on deck". Henry donned an overcoat while his wife put on a fur coat, She grabbed a pair of gloves, a fur muff, and her mother's pearl necklace that she had given her.and together with Hassab and their pet Pekingese they went on deck, on their way there stopping at the ship's Gymnasium. In his account published in Harper's Weekly, Harper described the confusion in the gymnasium as "rather like a stupid picnic, where you don't know anybody and wonder how soon you can get away from such a boresome place." Once on deck, Harper observed that Lifeboat 3 would float the longest out of the boats in the vicinity, so he allowed his wife and dragoman, joined by Sun Yat Sen. to step onto the craft, following shortly after seeing how there were no more women wishing to board. The whole party survived.
Portrayals[]
For the 1956 Kraft Theatre production of "A Night to Remember", Henry Sleeper Harper was portrayed by Anthony Kemble-Cooper.