James Kelly was a passenger on the Titanic, not to be confused with another passenger, named James R. Kelly and a similarly named Greaser.
Background[]
James Kelly’s year of origin was 1892, when he was suffused with life on July 6, in the Scottish town of Carluke, Lanarkshire. William Kelly and Robina Barr Reid were the pair that had place him on earth. The Kelly’s already were a large family when James arrived, but they would continue to add siblings for James, his eldest being Daniel Reid.
Father William was under apprenticeship for becoming a clothier, working for a full time dressmaker. Like his son, his crib was also placed in Carluke, which was also the place of genisis for Robina, who had walked with Wiliam to the alter for the yes-word in 1884. This was the same year that Robina would meet her first daughter Mary Pillans. Also sharing space in the household was Margaret Graham, since 1886. A unique name was bestowed on the next girl in 1888: Euphemia. But affably named Effie, before Robina made her entrance in 1890. Jane livened things up in 1894 and it was only as of 1895 that there was another boy, the third. Janet was the name of the girl who was next in 1897, before their last son was born in 1898: Alexander. The last 4 from the entirity of 14 young ones, were all girls.
The proliferation went on with Betsy in 1901, while Sarah was ready to show up in 1902. Christina Pillans left the womb in 1905 while Helen Thomson bringing the propagation to a close in 1907.
The ménage was not without its woes. Two of James’ brothers had gone into the eternal at a young age. The first big loss was Alexander, who was just 10 when they had to let him go in 1908.
In 1911, James had seen his 18th summer, when his younger sibling William passed away. In those days, James was a calciminer and interior decorater by profession, not having abondended the elderly abode. Between 1901 and 1911, they had sticked to one point.
In 1912, Kelly wanted to try his luck in the Canadian provence, British Columbia For this, he would needed passage on an ocean liner to bring him to the other side of the North Atlantic.
Titanic[]
With many ships laid off due to the coal strike, options were slim. By chance, the collosal RMS Titanic had just been approved seaworthy to be delivered at the Southampton docks from Belfast. Here, her first voyage would begin in a few days.
Titanic was unmoored on the 10th of April, to commence her trip to New York. This is when Kelly, who had seen to it that he got to here from Scotland, first threaded the boarding plank to the gangway door into Third Class. She had to cross the river Test, which nearly went awry as she had unintenitally realed in the anchored New York which came so close, that it could've punctured a hole in Titanic, but this was prevented luckily.
It was later relished that Kelly had made a few letters for the ones dear to him in Queenstown where the ship would dock for the last time for passengers, crews and mail. The letters showed that James was in awe of what he saw during his first day of the trip.
On April 14, things went a little bit different than usual. It hadn’t been so cold outside in the previous days with Titanic about to enter a danger zone. Yet, she maintained full steam and rather upped the ante.
Titanic had to deal with an unexpected enemy which should have been anticipated, spawned by Mother Nature herself. Titanic was already encompassed by ice for a while when her lookouts were confounded by an iceberg to could well surprass Titanic’s top deck in height. Their startlement lay in the fact that they should’ve been able to look ahead and perceive it well before the ship would get within miles of it, but it was imminent.
The Sixth Officer was on the bridge when he heard the ship’s bell clanging three times and then the telephone rang. He got the lookout on the line that saw the iceberg first, shouting “Iceberg right ahead”. The white menace was not too far away by this point and First Officer Murdoch realised this too. He ran to the steering cabin and wanted an instant coure change from his quartermaster. He determined that going “Hard-a-starboard” was the best course of action. With hindsight, he would have thought better of it, but he also asked for stoppage of the engines, to then converse them.
Titanic’s bow only trudged a bit to port side (with her rudder fully to starboard) when the broad part of her starboard glanced some of the ice that could not be seen, as it was below sea level. Her rubbing with the berg went on for several seconds and a few snicks were made by the piercing mass, shearing a few bits of her steel. Water sidled into at least 6 openings.
The Captain had a sensation of the rumbling motion caused by the sideswipe and dashed to the bridge. Having been wised up about the commotion, he wanted some of his men to scout down below to tell him what had ensued. More pessimism made itself master of the captain after the surveys came in. He then decided to take a gander himself.
Nobody was more familiar with the anatomy of the Titanic than her own main designer, Thomas Andrews, who offered an insight, although lamentable, into the ship’s impairment, which he had clocked along with the captain. He gave the captain a time, in which Titanic could keep herself above the water level. The best possible outcome was 2 hours. At 12:05 A.M, on April 15, Captain Smith ordered all the lifeboats under davits to be swung out.
Over the course of 2 hours, Titanic’s beak dropped to an ever lower level, while the crew managed to get only 18 out of 20 boats succesfully launched, with not enough people in it. Many lives were unnessecarily lost. The last two boats were a handful and proved near impossible to get off the roofs. The sea by then had already eaten its way into the wheelhouse and smothered the entire forward deck to the first sets of empty davits. Both boats were dragged away from the ship by the force of a large wave that occured with an increase in the Titanic’s sinking motion.
Some minutes later, her first funnel had fallen and the water moved further aft while her posterior was pitched up to a steep angle, to the point that she was dissected with her whole upperstructure ripped apart from the tautness.
The two huge parts of Titanic had vanished by 2:20 A.M.
James Kelly was one of at least 1500 people that would not see daylight again. The majority of those people had fallen victim to merciless waters that had stabbingly cold waters. No human being would last long in them. Others had not managed to escape the inside of the ship and drowned.
How Kelly met his end, is a question that will remain tough to answer.
After his death[]
Because there was an Irish passenger in Third Class that also carried the name James Kelly, the Carluke and Lanark Gazette made an error on April 27, when they declared that their late local had been galvanized by the Mackay-Bennett. The body that Mackay-Bennett had actually taken onboard, belonged to the other James Kelly from Leixlip.
It would have been of little consolance to the family, who now had a third boy grasped from their life in the short span of 4 to 5 years, while having few sons anyway. Their daughters were with so many, their only living son from now own would be their eldest, Daniel.
There newspaper also stated that Kellys and acquaintences were frantically appealing to the White Star Line. They tried sedulously but it took a week before confirmation came that James had been on the ship, to descend into the abyss with it.