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Lawrence Beesley was an English science teacher, journalist, and author who survived the sinking of the RMS Titanic. He was probably the best known Second Class passenger. It would be the first time he would ever take a voyage over sea.

He reportedly stayed at Southampton Hotel on April 9th, as to make a smoother arrival time to the Titanic. He had already been aboard the ship on April 7th, as it was Good Friday that day and nobody on the ship had to work as a result. Captain Smith made sure the ship was dressed in flags and for Beesley, this was a lucky moment, in that Titanic was opened for public on that day at the cost of a few pennies. as he got to visit the Gymnasium which was a First Class facility. Beesley occupied cabin D-56. He did enjoy his voyage and found all the unique features aboard very interesting and nice but he realised there was not much to do on the ship, so he kept himself busy by counting the amount of sways that he ship made each minute, he didn't recall the amount later, but he remembered Titanic had a hardly noticable list to port on the whole voyage. He also walked on deck often, read, and wrote letters in the library.

On the evening of April 14, Beesley saw two women in the Second Class Library. They were identified as Mary Emma Corey and Claire Karnes. It was the last time these two were reported alive; they perished in the sinking.

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Working out in Titanic's Gymnasium on April 7, when Titanic was flagged and the place was open for the public.

One of the survivors of the sinking of the Titanic in April 1912, Beesley wrote a successful book about his experience, The Loss of the SS Titanic (June 1912), published just nine weeks after the disaster. He saw two second class women who tried to get on a lifeboat and were told to go back to their own deck and that their lifeboats were waiting there.

At the time of lifeboat 13's launching, the Boat Deck was not brightly lit and no women or children were in immediate sight, but it seemed there was room for more. As a result, Beesley was ordered to jump into the lifeboat just before it launched. He managed to survive a subsequent incident, where lifeboat 15 nearly came on top of number 13. The leading fireman in charge of boat No. 13, Frederick Barrett, managed to cut the ropes connecting the boat to the falls at the last minute, which meant the occupants in both boats remained unharmed. Beesley and the rest of the survivors were picked up by the RMS Carpathia early morning on April 15.

During the filming of 'A Night to Remember' (1958), Beesley famously gatecrashed the set during the sinking scene, hoping to "go down with the ship" that time. But he was spotted by the director, Roy Ward Baker, who vetoed this unscheduled appearance, due to actors' union rules. These events are parodied in Julian Barnes' novel A History of the World in 10.5 Chapters, where Beesley makes a brief appearance as a fictional character.

Portrayals[]

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David Warner as Lawrence Beesley in S.O.S Titanic (1979)

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Lawrence Beesley in S.O.S Titanic (1979)

Beesley was portrayed by actor David Warner (who went on to portray Spicer Lovejoy in the 1997 film) in the 1979 dramatization of the voyage and sinking, S.O.S. Titanic. He is the grandfather of New York Times science editor Nicholas Wade. Beesley was also portrayed by Lawrence Bennett in 1999 musical stage adaptation Titanic.

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