The TITANIC Photographer

Born in Cork in 1880, Frank Browne came from a prominent family in that city. His grandfather, James Hegarty, was Lord Mayor, and his uncle, Robert Browne, was Bishop of Cloyne for 41 years. His schooldays were spent at Christian Brothers’ College, Cork, the Bower Convent, Athlone, Belvedere College , Dublin, and Castleknock College, Dublin. When Frank left school in 1897 he set out on a Grand Tour of Europe. The resultant images were the first shots in a salvo of photographic activity that would still be reverberating 100 years later.

Kilkenny Hurlers, 1925

On his return from the continent Frank joined the Jesuits. After two years in the novitiate, he attended the Royal University in Dublin where he spent three years in the same class as his fellow Belvederian, James Joyce.
From 1903 to 1906 he studied philosophy in Chieri, near Turin, and then returned to the desks of Belvedere College where he taught for five years. During the first of these (1906), he founded The Belvederian (the college annual) and the Camera Club; both still exist.


From 1911 to 1916, Frank Browne studied Theology at Milltown Park in Dublin. It was during this period that his Uncle Robert (the Bishop of Cloyne) sent him an unusual present: a ticket for the first legs of the maiden voyage of the Titanic, sailing from Southampton to Cherbourg and then on to Queenstown (Cobh), Co Cork, Ireland.

Gymnasium on board

While on board, an American millionaire offered to pay his way for the rest of the voyage to New York. On being apprised of this suggestion, Frank's Jesuit Superior cabled Queenstown saying, succinctly,“GET OFF THAT SHIP---PROVINCIAL”.
Last view of the Titanic

After the tragedy, Frank Browne’s photographs appeared on the front pages of newspapers around the world. He had taken the last picture of Captain Smith and the only one ever taken in the Marconi room. His series starts at Waterloo Station with the “Titanic Special” and documents the activities of passengers and crew aboard this unique ship, concluding with the anchor being raised from the water for the last time.


On the Western Front with the Irish Guards and in post-war Germany.
Battlefield, Ypres, August, 1917 In 1915 Frank was ordained a priest by his Uncle Robert. The following year he volunteered for service as a chaplain to the Irish Guards. He was with them at the Western Front and in Germany well into 1919. He served at the battle of the Somme, at Locre, Wytschaete and Massine Ridge, Paschendaele, Ypres, Amiens and Arras. He was wounded five times and was awarded the Military Cross and Bar.

'The Watch on the Rhine', Cologne, Germany, 1919

In the albums he assembled for his regiment he included pictures of the appalling suffering in the trenches and finished with images of Cologne and Bonn; one of these,“Watch On The Rhine” is a classic.

After the war Father Browne returned to Belvedere and in 1922 was appointed superior of Gardiner Street Church. Due to ill health he travelled to Australia in 1924. On the journey out he photographed life aboard ship and at Cape Town. He travelled extensively throughout Australia, photographing sugar cane processing, members of Irish religious orders, migrant workers, new immigrants in canvas villages, and sheep farming in a series covering a cross section of Australian Life.

Country Road, Co. Roscommon, 1937

On his return journey he visited Sri Lanka (Ceylon), Egypt, and Gibraltar, making memorable images as he went. During the 1930s he visited England several times. The majority of the images from this time are from East Anglia and London.

When he returned to Ireland he was stationed as a member of the missions and retreats staff of the Irish order. His duties took him to all parts of Ireland, working mostly in the evening, which enabled him to indulge his photographic activities during the day. Apart from trips to England on assignments for the British Museum and the Church of England, the remainder of his work was undertaken in Ireland. He died in July of 1960 and is buried in the Jesuit plot in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin.


Rediscovery

Father Browne's great collection of negatives lay forgotten for 25 years after his death. It was by chance in 1986 that Father E. E. O’Donnell SJ discovered this amazing collection in a large metal trunk. Father O’Donnell brought the negatives to the attention of the features editor of the London Sunday Times who dubbed them “the photographic equivalent to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls”.

Subsequently, David Davison was invited to assess them from an artistic/photographic point of view and make recommendations on their conservation. The news was bad: over half of the negatives were on an unstable and dangerous nitrate base and many had already deteriorated badly. Sponsorship from Allied Irish Banks enabled David and his son, Edwin, to make a complete set of duplicate negatives of the entire collection and preserve it for posterity.

The collection has been catalogued on a computerized database; this has facilitated the selection of images for exhibitions and books and has been used for the selection of the finest pictures now offered for sale.


Assessment

Frank Browne's inherent artistic talent is clearly present in his earliest photographic works. Over the years, his abilities flourished and enabled him to create a body of work unrivalled by any Irish photographer during the first half of the 20th Century. Various authorities have compared his work to that of Doisneau and Cartier-Bresson, but much of his work predates them.

His perceptive creativity was reaching maturity during his time in Australia and flowered profusely through the 1930s and 1940s, during which time he created a priceless document of Irish life. During this latter period he wrote for the Kodak Magazine, and photographically illustrated Irish magazines and brochures and performed an active role in bringing the “SALON” movement to Ireland. This movement was initiated to foster photography as an art form, a matter close to Frank Browne's heart.

In La Linea, Spain, 1925, all he made some 41,632 negatives. His interests were broad, resulting in his capturing a unique view into the industrial, agricultural, religious, commercial and social elements of an Ireland developing its own post independence identity.

There are several means by which this work can be assessed. Many of the pictures are quaintly nostalgic, evoking personal or received recollections of a different world. The social/documentary value may be deemed more significant than nostalgia.

St. Stephen's Green in Fog, Dublin, 1944
(Some of the exerpts above is from a Father Browne memorial site)

How the TITANIC sank

When the TITANIC sank struck the iceberg, it made the iron plates buckle and the rivets pop out. It made multiple gashes (not one long gash) and water leaked in. The TITANIC could hold water in up to two watertight compartments. She could even stay afloat with four. But, the gash stretched to the 6th watertight bulkheads and when the watertight doors closed, that only slowed down the sinking because the water went up over the bulkheads and spilled into the next and then the one after that dragging the ship to down lower, letting water come in, until the TITANIC was completely flooded. The TITANIC was doomed no matter how you sliced it. The weight of the water pulled her down by the head and the whole ship had been completely submerged by 2:20. The TITANIC still has mysteries like, what do the gashes look like? and Why did the steal buckle?. The holes that you see today in the bow were caused by the impact of the TITANIC hitting the bottom. The holes remain buried forever in the sediment.

The sinking of the TITANIC

It was April 14, 1912 in 33 degree weather. The captain had just gone to bed and 1st Officer Murdoch was in charge. It was around 11:35 when suddenly, the bell rang three times which was the signal for danger. The phone rang and Murdoch answered. The voice of Fredrick Fleet came on saying "Iceberg right ahead!". Murdoch immediately reversed the engines and ordered the Quartermaster Robert Hitchens to turn the ship. Slowly, the ship turned but it wasn't quick enough and the iceberg struck the ship at approximately 11:40. They saw the iceberg quickly drift out of sight. "The captain came up asking what have we struck?" "An iceberg sir" came the reply. Captain Smith then called for Thomas Andrews, the designer of the ship. When Andrews came, Smith explained the situation and Andrews and Smith went to inspect the

damage. Once Andrews saw the water rising in the 6th water tight compartment, Andrews knew the ship was to founder. Steam then started spewing out of the forward funnel and that aroused a few people. The lifeboats were starting to be filled with passengers and a little bit of crew around midnight. By around 12:12, the first boat was lowered with only 1/4 of the capacity. Each lifeboat could hold 64 people but the first boats were lowered with around 20 to 50 passengers and crew. Soon, the boats began filling with more and more people. One was so over crowded, that the officer ordered one person to get off. One anonymous woman got out and said, "Many of you have husbands, children, and wives at home; I do not." She then walked away.
By 1:05, the last boat had left and Officer Lightoller was getting Collapsible B down
off the roof of the Officer's Quarters on the port side while Officer Murdoch was doing the same with Collapsible A on the Starboard side. The water washed the boats as soon as they got the boats down. Around 1:20, the forward funnel fell crushing John Jacob Astor and a dozen others. Just after the forward funnel collapsed, a wave washed over the deck crashing through the Grand Staircase and carrying Jack Thayer and Milton Long off the ship. The ship slid rising higher and higher until something happened and the TITANIC broke apart between the third and fourth funnel. This carried the Aft Grand Staircase, Lounge, Smoking Room, and some cabins. Finally, around 2:20, the great TITANIC took the final plunge leaving over 1,500 dead and survivors in small boats in the vast ocean. The TITANIC's bow section hit the bottom
bow first crushing the bottom tip and twisting the shape. The stern had air pockets not filling all the way and imploded on the way down and left a wreck that looked like a bomb exploded inside. Next came a slow rain of things that fell out. Only one survivor is still living today.

5th Officer Lowe

Harold Godfrey Lowe was born on November 21, 1882 in Cowny, North Wales, England. His father was a respectable business man and had high hopes for him and his other five brothers and their hoped his two sisters would marry respectable husbands. Instead, Harold went to sea at age 14.

He was cabin boy on a vessel traveling around South Africa and slowly rose in rank. He passed his second mate test in 1906 and first mate test in 1908. Then, in 1911, got his master. He joined the White Star Line in 1911 and was 3rd officer on the Belgic and the Tropic.

He was demoted to 5th officer on the TITANIC. He was asleep when the iceberg struck and when defending himself before the inquiry, he said, "We officers do not have any too much sleep, and therefore when we sleep, we die." He woke up half an hour later. While loading the lifeboats, Mr. Ismay was encouraging others to get into the lifeboats when he got in the way of Lowe and Lowe blessed him out. He took charge of Boat No. 14 when it was being lowered, he fired shots into the air because he saw some men whom looked like they were about to jump. After the great ship went down, Lowe waited until the cries for help died down and then he went towards the people where most of them were dead already.

He picked up 4 survivors and then saw a man on a door that was Japanese. He later said : "A little further on, we saw a floating door that must have been torn loose when the ship went down. Lying upon it, face downward, was a small Japanese. He had lashed himself with a rope to his frail raft, using the broken hinges to make the knots secure. As far as we could see, he was dead. The sea washed over him every time the door bobbed up and down, and he was frozen stiff. He did not answer when he was hailed, and the officer hesitated about trying to save him.
"What's the use?" said Mr Lowe. He's dead, likely, and if he isn't there's others better worth saving than a Jap!"
He had actually turned our boat around; but he changed his mind and went back. The Japanese was hauled on board, and one of the women rubbed his chest, while others chafed his hands and feet. In less time than it takes to tell, he opened his eyes. He spoke to us in his own tongue; then, seeing that we did not understand, he struggled to his feet, stretched his arms above his head, stamped his feet, and in five minutes or so had almost recovered his strength. One of the sailors near to him was so tired that he could hardly pull his oar. The Japanese bustled over, pushed him from his seat, took the oar and worked like a hero until we were finally picked up. I saw Mr Lowe watching him in open-mouthed surprise.
"By Jove!" muttered the officer. "I'm ashamed of what I said about the little blighter. I'd save the likes o' him six times over, if I got the chance." He cried out to the guy but he didn't respond. He hauled him on and after reviving him, the man grabbed an oar and stayed there until they reached the Carpathia. One of the men that he rescued, died of exposure during the boat ride and did not survive the night.

Officer Lowe later married Emily White House and they had two children, Harold and Florence. He served as commander during WW1 and then retired from the sea. He died in 1944.

The Ryersons

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Arthur Larned and Emily Ryerson were a French couple with not a lot of money, but Arthur was a famous colonel so he was still in high society. Emily was an American and her family went back to one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, so she was very social and was liked by so many. They had five children, Arthur Junior, was finishing his last year at Yale University when he was killed in an automobile accident.

The Ryersons were going to attend their son's funeral and were traveling on the TITANIC. They were traveling with Mrs. Ryerson's servant, Victorine Chandanson.

Mrs. Ryerson, for some odd reason, didn't want to leave her cabin and rarely ate meals outside their cabin but Mrs. Thayer once persuaded her to take a stroll on deck. Unknown to the Ryersons, he had a fourth cousin on board whom was a dining room steward.

The Titanic had hit the iceberg and their room steward came in to direct them to the lifeboats, the steward was nearly convinced to leave them alone. Mrs. Ryerson and Victorine Chandanson made it to the life boats. Mr. Ryerson died in the sinking and went to join his son that night.

In an interview by Senator Smith of Michigan, Emily Ryerson said this about Mr. Ryerson:

Q. He (Ismay) didn't say anything to you about speeding the ship up to get out of the ice?
A. No, that was merely the impression that was left on my mind.

Q. My question is not whether he spoke about their putting on more boilers and going faster; but I am confining my question to whether he said, or suggested to you, anything that indicated that they were going to increase their speed in order to get out of the ice?
A. As I say, that was merely the impression left on my mind.

Q. Nothing was said?
A. No, not in so many words -- that was the impression left on my mind.

Q. You don't wish to be understood the Titanic was trying to make a speed record across the Atlantic?
A. I should say my impression was they were going to show -- surprise us all by what she could do, on that voyage.

Q. As a matter of fact, was it discussed whether she should get in on Tuesday night, or Wednesday morning?
A. Yes.

Q. Among passengers?
A. Yes, and in this conversation with Mr. Ismay also, there was some question about it, because I discussed it with my husband after I got down to the cabin.

Q. You wouldn't say Mr. Ismay said they were going to make a record?
A. No, I wouldn't say he said those words -- his attitude, or his language, we assumed that that was -- that we were trying to make a record. I wouldn't say he used those words.

Mrs. Ryerson never talked about the TITANIC and hated the mention of the ocean liner. Victorine married a fellow servant of the Ryersons. They had one son. In all, only one Ryerson child died of old age.

Wireless Shack

This is the only known photograph taken of the wireless telegraph on the TITANIC



Harold Sydney Bride was born on January 11, 1890 to Aurthur Bride and Mary Anne Lowe in Nunhead, London, England. After going to school, he went to college where he learned telegraphy along with Jack Phillips.

After graduating, he was telegrapher on the Haverford,Lusitania, LaFrance, and the Anselm. On the TITANIC, he was reunited with Jack Phillips. They were relating stories about their experiences between college and then.

On April 13, 1912, the telegraph broke down and it took all night to fix the problem. During that time, hundreds of messages from passengers piled up. What was more distressing, was that ships kept on sending ice warnings all the time.

On April 14, 1912, the captain gave the message for C.Q.D. (C.Q.D. is the International Distress call for help). While Phillips was sending, Bride jokingly suggested that he should send an S.O.S. which was the new call for help. Phillips replied and said "yes, and it might be our last chance to use it." They were able to get the Carpathia on the run but the Olympic wanted more details and the Frankfurt was too far away.

Soon, the power became weak and the captain released them but Phillips kept working. A stoker came in and tried to steal Phillip's life jacket when Harold held him while Phillips knocked him out. Bride ran out and helped the men get Collapsible B down when water came. Bride found himself underwater and found an air pocket where he was able to stay for half an hour before coming to the surface and was pulled aboard Collapsible B and had to sit and let his feet dangle into the water. Soon, they were rescued but Bride had to be carried aboard the Carpathia because his feet had gotten severe frostbite. He decided to later relieve Harold Cottam, the operator on the Carpathia and give him a rest.

There were offers to give details to newspapers but Bride just sent the names of the survivors. He was carried off the Carpathia where he was greeted by Guglielmo Marconi, whom was the inventor of the Wireless Telegraph.

He was later married in 1919 to Lucy Johnstone Downie and had 3 children. He later went to Scotland where he became a salesman to escape publicity. He died on April 29, 1956 at the age of 66.

At a memorial to Jack Phillips who died in the wreck, he (Harold Bride)said, "He was a brave man. I learned to love him that night and I suddenly felt a great reverance to see him standing there sticking to his work while everybody else was raging about. I will never live to forget the work of Phillips during the last awful fifteen minutes."



John George (Jack) Phillips was born on April 11, 1887 to George Phillips and Anne Sanders. They lived in Farncombe, Surrey, England in an apartment where George and Anne slept in a small room upstairs, Phillips and his sister slept downstairs, and there was a small kitchen as well.

After school and telegraphy college in 1902, Phillips worked in the Goldaming Post Office. He then worked on the Teutonic, Campania, Corsican, Victorian, Pretorian, Lusitania, Maurentania, and then worked at the Cifden, Ireland, Post Office. He went back to sea and went on the Adriatic in 1911 and the Oceanic in early 1912.

He was the Chief wireless operator on the TITANIC. On the night of the sinking, The R.M.S. Californian sent him an ice warning and the message was so loud, that Jack said "Shut up, Shut up, I'm busy!"

Jack Phillips supposedly worked at the telegraph until water started coming in. He then went to the stern where he jumped and climbed upon Collapsible B. He is believed to have later died of exposure. In any case, his body was never found.

Sir Cosmo and Lady Duff Gordon

Sir Cosmo Edmond Duff Gordon became the owner of a huge estate. The Gordons became lords because his great-grandfather was a war hero in the Penisular War.

Lucy Christina Sutherland grew up as a tomboy on her father's farm but slowly she was broken in by her mother. She later married James Wallace in 1888 but divorced shortly after. Left without a penny to her name, she borrowed money and opened a clothing store in London called Maison Lucile. She became very successful and even made underwear for Her Majesty, Queen Mary. The two met when Sir Cosmo had a suit made for him. They were wed happily in 1894.

They were going on the TITANIC because of some private yet urgent business in New York. They had two cabins and Sir Cosmo slept in A-20 and Lady Lucy slept in A-16. They were the some of the first ones off and were on Boat No. 7 which was only 1/5 full.

It was later said that Sir Cosmo bribed the crewman in charge of the boat to not return and pick up passengers from the water. However, at the senate inquiry, Sir Cosmo claimed to have given some money to crewmembers who told him that they had lost everything and their pay with the sinking of the ship.

Sir Cosmo died a scapegoat on April 20, 1930. Lady Duff Gordon wrote a book trying to clear her husband's name after his death claiming that they couldn't hear the people in the water but all other accounts from that boat say that they heard it.
Lady Duff Gordon died on April 20, 1935.

Family of 8

Sydney's grave



Augusta Goodwin was an electrical engineer in Southampton, England and a Presbyterian deacon.

The oldest was Lillian whom was born in 1894?. Next came Charles in 1892?, then William in 1901? and Jessie in 1902? then Harold in 1903? and finally Sidney in 1910?.

The family was in a very small house of around 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, but they loved each other.

Mr. Goodwin decided to start a new life in America so he bought a house in Niagara Falls, New York. They were going to take the Oceanic but because of the coal strike, they were transferred to the TITANIC as 3rd class passengers. They loved exploring the ship and singing. The sinking must have been horrific because they had to keep up with each other and go through mazes just to find the boat deck. They came up just when the last boat left. All 8 died and only 19 month old Sidney's body was recovered.

Rust To Rust

Microbiologists tend to look on the bright side of things. For them, there's no such thing as death, just the introduction of a new food source. "While the Titanic was new", muses University of Regina microbiologist Dr. Roy Cullimore, "it was very animate with human life. Then there was the tragedy of death. Now essentially another biomass is taking over the ship, the rusticles."

Looking on the bright side -- Cullimore with consortial friends
These rusty icicles, immortalized by the film Titanic and now as emblematic of sunken wrecks as cobwebs are of dusty attics, represent more than decay to Cullimore. Cullimore believes that because of their unique structure and the consortial, or communal, living habits of the life forms that build them, rusticles offer a peek into the evolution of multicellular life itself.

Iron related bacteria (IRB) have been British-born Cullimore's passion ever since earlier research in the water wells of his adopted home, the land-locked Prairie provinces. He participated in the 1996 exploration of the Titanic, when it became apparent that the rusty concretions festooning the wreck were actually evidence of remarkably tenacious and unique life forms. The first dives and robotic flybys of the Titanic viewed rusticles as obstacles or nuisances, much like stalactites in caves. Now Cullimore and his colleague Lori Johnston will be aboard the 1998 Titanic expedition with a whole new bag of experiments up his sleeve.

Previous Titanic rusticles have been gleaned from steel brought up from the debris field that surrounds the wreck. But this year's grand plan is to successfully raise the "big piece": the stern section that was brought within a few metres of the surface in 1996 before stormy seas sent it to the bottom again, to rest ten kilometres from where it previously lay. "George Tulloch will not sleep until that piece is up," observes Cullimore, referring to the leader of the expedition and founder of RMS Titanic Inc, the company to which American courts awarded salvor-in-possession rights in 1994.

Rusticles come in a number of distinct shapes.
Cullimore will probably not sleep after the big piece is brought up - he estimates it will yield one to four tonnes of rusticles. The hull plates of both stern and bow sections literally drip iron sludge, as rusticles extract iron from the steel plating at a rate of .1 of a tonne per day - roughly a tonne every three years. The inanimate product of a group effort by more than twenty different types of bacteria and 2 types of fungi, the rust-hued structures possess a life of their own for Cullimore. "While the rusticle looks large and is complex it's not really a single species," he explains. "It's a group of species of microorganisms that are working together to create a common habitat." He calls that habitat "a living biological concrete", incorporating clay from the ocean floor, broken glass and coal from the ship's contents, small bits of gravel deposited by melting icebergs above, all enveloped by the Titanic's iron.



What is most intriguing about the rusticle, which ranges from a few centimetres in length to three metres across, is its uncanny resemblance to a living organism. Far from being a mass of indistinct rust, it has been formed by its inhabitants into a series of recognizable differentiable structures. There are internal water channels, hard iron-rich plates, porous sponge-like layers and ducts that connect inside water channels to the outside. Iron-rich water circulates through the rusticle, perhaps gravity driven, or perhaps driven by carbon dioxide generated by the microorganisms. "It has a primitive circulatory system. There's a lot of iron in it and it makes one think of the obvious comparison - blood," says Cullimore. "One of the strangest things is when you X-ray a rusticle you see a lot of puffy clouds which is where the iron is concentrated. And then you see little rivulets of concentrated iron, and it looks almost like a blood system."

The parallels between human and rusticle get closer to home as Cullimore points out the extent to which we can be considered consortial entities, just like rusticles. Most of us forget that we digest food and intake nutrients by the grace of independent microorganisms living in our gut, which we have to feed before we ourselves get to eat. And the very mitochondria found in every cell, the powerhouse organelles which provide us with energy, more resemble free living, self-replicating bacteria with their own separate DNA than they do part of our own body.

TITANIC myths

A Mummy on board- There was no mummy with a curse on board. That story is false. It was started by William T. Stead whom was talking of his interest in Amen Ra however the people that heard him started a rumor that the mummy had a curse and that it sank the TITANIC.

A worker switched the OLYMPIC and TITANIC name plates during construction- That was completely false. That legend was started by workers thinking they would stir up trouble but it was unbelieved until this present day when the myth was aroused by records and now that lie is spreading the most.

Bodies used as fuel- That myth is utterly ridiculous. There was a coal shortage but during the Edwardian age, people would have died rather than used bodies as fuel. The myth was probably started by news papers that were thinking about the mummies used as fuel during the 1800s.

Worker trapped in the hull- This myth was started by workers at pubs for jokes and these were told to family which were passed down.

The registration number said no pope- That is more than likely a myth because this letter is of coincidence.

Men dressed as women- There was only one, Daniel, that admitted that Mrs. Astor threw her shawl over him but no others as far as we know.