Children of Titanic

WHEN the sailors saw the baby's body rising and falling on the icy swell they wept.

As the world reeled from the shock of the liner's sinking, the crew of Mackay-Bennett had the unenviable task of hunting for the remains of Titanic victims in the Atlantic.

It was a grisly job. But the low point for many was the sight of what was to become the only child's body to be recovered.

Many of the corpses they found were badly damaged during their time in the water. But, despite six days open to the elements, this infant's tiny form was floating face up, perfectly preserved.

The sinking of Titanic off Newfoundland on her maiden voyage in 1912 is one of the most infamous maritime tragedies of all time. 1,523 out of a total of 2,200 passengers and crew on board perished after the ship, sailing between Southampton and New York, hit an iceberg on the night of April 14.

The death toll was so heavy partly because of the speed of the sinking and partly because there were far too few lifeboats for those on board. Mackay-Bennett was the first of four vessels contacted by the White Star Line to recover Titanic's dead. Before leaving Halifax, Nova Scotia, Captain F H Lardner gave crew members the chance to sign off without penalty if they did not wish to embark on the gruesome voyage (an offer which no one took advantage of).

Loaded with ice and coffins - and with an embalmer on board - the Mackay-Bennett arrived at the scene of the tragedy on April 20. The men were greeted with the unforgettable sight of bodies and wreckage floating on the waves.

Crew member Arminias Wiseman later wrote: "The ocean was covered, as far as the eye can see, of remains and of corpses which rolled on water like stoppers."

Once the victims were retrieved from the water they were divided into the class of passenger, which then decided their fate. Those who had enjoyed the luxury of Titanic's first class were embalmed and returned to Halifax in coffins.

Second and third class passengers were put in bags, while the bodies of Titanic's crew were placed on stretchers. Badly disfigured bodies were buried at sea each evening by Cannon Hind.

Engineer Frederick Hamilton wrote in his diary: "For nearly an hour the words, 'For as much as it hath pleased... we commit this body to the deep' are repeated and at each interval there comes splash! as the weighted body plunges into the sea, there to sink to a depth of about two miles. Splash, splash, splash."

Soon Mackay-Bennett's decks were full and she was forced to return to Halifax while other ships were despatched to carry on this terrible task.

In fact the agonizing search lasted for nearly two months, between April 17 and June 6 and resulted in the recovery of 328 bodies - 306 of which were found by Mackay-Bennett. Of this total, 150 were buried in Halifax, distributed in three cemeteries according to religious persuasion. Forty-three of those buried in Nova Scotia are still unidentified.

But it was the story of the baby boy which touched the world then and which is now set to touch the world again today. His was the only body of the 56 youngsters who perished that night to be found, brought to land and buried.

A Halifax paper reported: "The little body floated up alongside the searchers' boat and it was tenderly brought aboard.

"The sight of this little form floating face upwards on the deep brought tears to the eyes of the hardy sailor men."

Once on land the boy's body was placed in a small white coffin, surrounded by flowers. There were many offers to foot the bill for his funeral from people shocked by his story. But the crew of Mackay-Bennett wanted to pay their final respects. Between them they footed the bill for the boy's funeral and a group acted as his pallbearers at a packed St George's Anglican Church on May 4.

His tombstone in Fairview Lawn Cemetery - again paid for by the crew - reads: "Erected to the memory of an unknown child whose remains were recovered after the disaster to Titanic, April 15, 1912."

And here the story would have ended but for a flurry of activity by pioneering scientists in recent months. Ninety years after the disaster, this 'unknown child' could finally be identified.

The remains of three unidentified victims from Titanic have recently been exhumed at the requests of families. Because of the soil structure and the cemetery's drainage system only one grave - that of the 'unknown child' - contained sufficient remains for DNA scientists at Canada's Lakehead University to work with.

For decades it had been thought that he was Gsta Leonard Plsson, who was just two year's old when Titanic went down. But dental experts have just confirmed that the remains are actually of a child aged around six months old.

A university spokeswoman said: "Fortunately a small fragment of poorly preserved bone was recovered, as well as three teeth from burial number four. These artefacts were the only human remains present in the burial.

"With the age of the 'unknown child' now known to be less than one year, the search has now focused on a five-month-old Swedish child, a seven-month-old English child and a thirteen-month-old Finnish child. All three were children of third class passengers."

Following its role in the Titanic disaster the Mackay-Bennett went on to become known as 'the coffin ship' and there are numerous tales of it being haunted by the ghost of a small child crying for its mother. Perhaps the current frenetic work by scientists will help lay this spirit to rest.

The Mackay-Bennett, The Funeral Ship at the Titanic Disaster by John G Avery is published by Beech Books and is available from the Daily Echo's Southampton City Centre office in Hanover Buildings.

- Originally published May 2002.