Percival Stainer Deslandes was a member of the victualling crew on Titanic.
Early life[]
Percival Stainer Deslandes was born in Islington, London in 1874. Both his parents were from the Channel Islands. His father Theodore Philip Deslandes was a draper from St. Helier, Jersey and his mother, Clara Chamberlain, was from Guernsey. Percival had one older sister. His friends and family often called him Percy.
By 1881, the family had moved to Weymouth in Dorset and Theodore was working as a commercial traveler. In 1897 he worked on Victoria as the Third Steward.
When he worked as second steward on another ship in 1901, he moved to Southampton. In 1910 he he married Elizabeth Myra Jones, a local girl. The couple settled at 495 Portswood Road. They would have no children. Percy last ship he worked on before the famous liner was the St Louis.
Titanic[]
On April 4, 1912 went to join Titanic as a First Class Saloon Steward. He 37 at the time, and was hoping for tips from the rich passengers on Titanic which could have doubled his wages of £3 15s a month.
On April 14, later at night, the ship had met its terrible fate by hitting an iceberg. The damage that was sustained below the water line meant that she would flood full of water and sink. On April 15, after midnight the commander of the ship realized she was going to founder, and ordered for evacuation. At 2:20 A.M, the great ocean liner, which was deemed unsinkable, slipped beneath the waves.
Exactly what happened to Percy when the ship sank isn’t certain but it is likely he was on deck, perhaps helping to load the lifeboats. He became a victim of one of the greatest maritime disasters in British history.
After his death[]
His body was later recovered from the sea by the CS Mackay-Bennett. Percy was the 212th body that they identified. He was still wearing his First Class Steward’s uniform and had a knife with him as well as corkscrews and an empty purse in his pocket. This suggests he was probably on duty at the time of the collision.
Percy was buried at Fairview Lawn Cemetery, Halifax, Nova Scotia on 6 May 1912. He left his estate, worth £185 3s 8d, to his wife Elizabeth, who never remarried and stayed in Southampton until her death in 1961.
Tragically, Percy’s sister, Ada, died in June 1912. Losing both their children in such a short space of time must have been a terrible blow to the Deslandes family. Percy’s grieving parents continued to live in Dorset until their deaths in the 1920s.
Source[]
Special thanks and credits to Marie Keates for allowing me to use a large part of this information on her blog:
https://iwalkalone.co.uk/the-final-titanic-tales-from-portswood-part-two/ The final Titanic tales from Portswood part two – I Walk Alone