Beesley, Lawrence - Celebrated Titanic Survivor

Lawrence Beesley - Celebrated Titanic Survivor

Lawrence Beesley the schoolmaster, before his traumatic voyage on the SS Titanic

Lawrence Beesley was born on December 31, 1877 in Wirksworth, Derbyshire, where his father Henry Beesley was a bank manager. In April 1912 Lawrence Beesley achieved lasting fame as a survivor of the maiden voyage of the 'unsinkable' liner SS Titanic.

Beesley attended Derby School, where he took a scholarship and then went up to Caius College, Cambridge. He did well academically and became a schoolmaster, teaching for two years (1902-04) at Wirksworth Grammar School. After leaving there he became a science master at Dulwich College.

His marriage to Gertrude Cecile Macbeth produced a son, Alec Beesley, but their happy family life was tragically interrupted when Gertrude died when Alec was still a child. Lawrence Beesley continued as a schoolmaster for a while, but then resigned his post in order to go on an extended holiday to visit his brother, Frank Meredith Beesley, in Toronto, Canada.

Lawrence Beesley bought a second class ticket for the Titanic for £13 and embarked at Southampton, leaving his young son Alec at home in England. He was reading in his cabin when the liner hit an iceberg late on April 14, 1912. He was fortunate to get a place in lifeboat number 13, although at one point the ropes lowering the boat could not be unhooked and he thought it would be dragged down with the ship. But eventually the lifeboat was freed. The 64 people in his boat were rescued by the 'Carpathia'. He disembarked at New York City.

Beesley was one of the lucky ones. Out of the 2,224 men, women and children on board the Titanic, 1,513 perished, including Derby-born George Hinckley (35), a second-class steward on the ship.

Later in 1912, just two short months after the sinking, Beesley wrote a book about the disaster - The Loss of the SS Titanic - which became a celebrated success. It was the first well-written and reliable account to come directly from the hand of a survivor. Although some controversy and discussion attended his version of events, much that has been written about the Titanic disaster drew on Beesley's first-hand account.

The famous film 'A Night to Remember' (1958) almost featured Beesley as an 'extra' on screen. He attended the filming and famously gatecrashed the set during the sinking scene, hoping to 'go down with the ship' second time around for fun. But the director spotted him and vetoed the unscheduled part due to actors' union rules.

The man who is surely Wirksworth's most unlikely celebrity had been aged 34 at the time of the disaster, but lived a long life after it. Lawrence Beesley died on February 14, 1969, aged 89.

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