William Thomas Abrams was a Fireman on Titanic.
Background[]
William Thomas Abrams’ life started between 1876 and 1878 in Gosport, Hampshire, England, conceived by Charles Henry Abrams and Elizabeth Esther Andrews who had their origin in Hampshire themselves. Charles was a woodworker. Charles and Elizabeth had made 6 children before William.
Elizabeth Sarah was the eldest sister of the lot, brought into existance in 1857. The second eldest was Mary Ann since 1859. William actually had a namesake, who went by the name of William John and stemmed from 1862. Wether the parents had decided to have two Williams or that his elder brother had died prematurely, is as good as any guess. William John’s sister was Alice, brought about in 1867 followed by James in 1869, with Eleanor Lee arriving in 1874.
In the 1880s, the Abrams’ family was situated in Alverstoke, Hampshire. William was being taught at school. William grew up with the christian faith and was part of the Anglican church. He did a manual job in his younger years, until October 1893, when William was in Gosport to be levied by the British Army.
In the later years of the 1890s, William labored at port or on a civil ship.If he wasn’t doing a crossing William could be found at the harbor making sure that cargo loads were properly going in the right direction.
On 18 March 1899, he consolodated his love for Nellie Chalmers Scott at Portsea. The marriage brought forth one child, in 1901. His name was Eli, but he was not destined to live longer than a couple of days. Not long after this tragic event, the relationship with Nellie developed into difficulties and disparity surfaced. At some point, they were not in the same household. It was said that she was the one that had broken the ties. During those years, William usually was slogging away as a Fireman on a vessel.
William complicated things further by not divorcing Nellie before making the ultimate promise to seaman’s daughter Mabel Constance Hosmer, whose family were likely not oblivious to the fact that he hadn’t ended his other marriage yet. The ceremony was held on October 26, 1907.
Any possible thought about peculiar situation didn’t stop William from producing a child with his new wife. His son would be William John Edward, emerging on March 29, 1908. In 1909 however the connubial bond with Mabel went sour as well. They were no longer physically together and William just deprived her of any maintanance.
This got him in conflict with the law, which had pulled him into detention before being called for a hearing in February 1910. On the 5th of February, the verdict was in. He conceided that he needed to give some sort of monetary support to his wife, which he would do as soon as he had landed a job. Because of that, he was a free man for the time being.
William’s dereliction continued and in July, he was served up by the justice department again. On 13 July 1910, they came looking for him at the time he would set foot on the Adriatic in the port of Southampton to become a member of her Firemen crew, but he was apprehended, which didn’t surprise him at all. For a second time, he had forsaken his responsibilities to financially provide for Mabel. She had received no penny, but on of top of that, the law administration had gotten height of his double marriage right after his first conviction. Nellie’s family ties, of which at least one man was also seafaring, proved to be the downfall of William. He had testified that William and Nellie were indeed connected by law. Abrams was cöoperative and had to do 8 months in the slam. He uttered a few words, vowing to become unmarried to both women and upon laying eyes on her at court, he felt like Nellie had become too different for his liking.
Mabel meanwhile had to look after herself and her child and made ends meet as a servant at the Bournemouth Grand Hotel and had officially broken off her ties with William, declaring herself as unmarried.
Having sat out his time in confiment, William managed to patch things up with Mabel somewhere between 1911 and 1912 while Nellie had found another husband after sometime.
In the Spring of 1912, William was sailing as crew with the Oceanic of the White Star Line, before he departed with a new, larger, luxury liner.
Titanic[]
William was in Southampton on Saturday, the 6th April, to be registered for the Engineering Crew of the RMS Titanic. He would be one of Titanic’s Firemen, who were intrusted with the task of feeding the ship’s boilers.
On April 10, the Titanic was gliding away from the Southampton piers into the river Test, to be pointed to the west, bound for New York. She would dock in France and Ireland a while later to pick up more passengers. Abrams was scheduled to work in the early morning from 4:00 A.M. till 8:00 A.M, as well as the shift from 16:00 P.M till 20:00 P.M.
On the night of April 14, at 11:39 P.M, the crew on the bridge were shaken up and stirred when the lookouts signaled them, for an iceberg had suddenly appeared dead ahead. The First Officer ordered the rudder to be swung completely to starboard side in order to make the Titanic diverge to port side and attempt to clear the iceberg that way. He also had notified the Engine Room with the telegraph to stop the propellors, but this was all not sufficient to get Titanic by the towering frozen mass without dragging part of her starboard hull against it. The hit had penetrated the hull and the seemingly small spaces between the buckled plates were an invitation for the ocean to enter the ship.
Titanic’s Captain had awoken instantly by the collision and with the ship’s designer, he investigated the extent of her damage at the affected areas. At midnight, April 15, affter having been through most of it with of Thomas Andrews, Captain Smith declared with pain his heart that his ship was a lost case. They had to get as many people off the ship, in a hurry. There were not enough boats however.
What William Abrams did is a story left open, but he may not have been on duty during the collision. As several other firemen were preserved in a lifeboat, William Abrams was not on any of the boats as the ship had pulled herself down and the stern had detached itself from the midsection. After 2:20 A.M, all that was left of Titanic was her wreckage and boats with more than 700 people in them. Many people had remained onboard till it was no longer possible and then were in the sea, which was of such low temperature, that no human body could realistically sustain itself for more than 20 minutes. This how most of Titanic’s hundreds of victims met their end. William’s body was taken by the sea. Only a few hundred bodies were sighted days after the disaster.
After his death[]
The Titanic Relief Fund supplied in the needs of the stricken family. Mabel was already expecting before the disaster and she welcomed a daughter, many months after losing her husband in 1912, to already lose her by cruel play of fate, before the girl was three. The poor child, Nancy Florence, lived until September 28, 1915.
Mabel saw a future with Arthur Herbert Ford, also having lost his partner. The man from Winchester gave her his word on 24 April 1917.
The gruesome World War I took another valuable life way from Mabel’s love. It was April 24, 1917 when Arthur was on the trawler HMT Margate, taken down by a U-boat to sink, with Mr. Ford not surviving. A Wiltshire man, Frederick Chalk, later filled in the gap to then give her a baby girl as well.
Her other child, young William junior Abrams, would also later get across the sea regularly and was included in the Royal Navy.