Artist's impression of Jack Butterworth
Jack Butterworth was born in Manchester on the 6th of February, 1889. His father was William James Butterworth who was a butcher, and Mary Jane Jervis was his mother. He had no less than 13 siblings, although one of them died long before him, at the age of 2. When a set of twins was born, of of them received the name of his deceased brother. Jack was the youngest.
His mother, aged 41, passed away in the Fall of 1895. Her widowed husband would not remarry. In November of that year, Jack went to the St George’s School. Little is known about his story when he started living in Southampton, but it was almost certainly connected with his seafaring career and he was there for a few years when he started his work. He met a local girl who worked as a domestic maid. She went by the name of May Evaline Hinton. They got engaged.
Before he joined Titanic he’d been working on the New York, which sailed the same route as Titanic would have. In fact, New York was berthed beside Oceanic when Titanic set sail and the suction of her passing caused the three inch steel hawsers securing the smaller ship to be torn from their moorings. There would have been a collision if Captain Smith hadn’t ordered Titanic’s port propeller to be reversed and turned the gigantic liner. Meanwhile a tugboat towed the New York in the opposite direction. Had the two ships collided, history may have been very different.
Jack posted a letter to miss Evaline during the stop in Queenstown, where he described this incident in lively terms.
On April the 14th, Titanic had grazed an iceberg but Jack hadn't felt or noticed anything, as he was in a deep slumber, if we go by the words of fellow First Class steward, Percy Edward Keen. The latter had to rouse him and shake him, to tell him to get dressed, as the ship was stationary and Percy felt something was wrong. It was very difficult to wake Butterworth, who was still very sleepy. When Jack had put his clothes on, they were ordered to come on deck and bring wraps. Percy hadn't seen Jack since. Jack Butterworth perished in the disaster.
On the 20th of April, the poor Miss Hinton got the awful news about Jack's death, more than a week after the sinking. Tragically, the letter from Queenstown reached her that same day, and on top if it, it was her 21st birthday. Jack’s body however was recovered by the Mackay-Bennet and numbered 116. He was described as having red hair and was wearing dark clothes, a white stewards' jacket and black boots. In his pocket was a cigarette case. He was buried at sea.
Sources[]
Special thanks and credits to Marie Keates for allowing me to use a large part of this information of her blog:
https://iwalkalone.co.uk/titanic-tales-from-st-denys: Titanic tales from St Denys – I Walk Alone