Sidney E. Daniels
Sidney Edward Daniels was a British merchant seaman and a third-class steward on the ocean liner RMS Titanic during her maiden voyage. He survived the sinking and at the time of his death was the last surviving crew-member of the disaster.
Early life
Sidney Edward Daniels was born on 19 November 1893 in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England, as the second youngest of nine children of police sergeant Walter James Daniels and Louisa Mary Hunter. Daniels had four brothers and four sisters, however two of his sisters passed away while he was a young boy. His father retired from the police force when Daniels was four years old in 1897 and instead started running a pub. Daniels went to school until he was years old, when his brother quit a job as a page boy at the Royal Albert Yacht Club in Southsea and Daniels' mother encouraged him to go to school in the mornings and work as a page boy in the afternoon. He held this job for two years before being fired in 1909. His mother fell ill before dying in 1911, the same year Daniels landed a job as a plate washer during the maiden voyage of the RMS Olympic. He fulfilled this job for two of Olympics voyages before becoming a third class steward instead with a salary of £3.50 a month. Daniels was on board Olympic when she collided with HMS Hawke on 20 September 1911.RMS ''Titanic''
Daniels remained working on the Olympic until a number of crew, including Daniels and his friend and fellow third class steward Francis Edbrooke, were selected to be transferred for service on the maiden voyage of the Olympics sistership RMS Titanic. Daniels signed on to Titanics crew on 4 April 1912 in Belfast as a third class steward and felt proud to be part of such a wonderful ship. Titanic departed Southampton for New York on 10 April 1912.Daniels recalled the voyage being smooth and quiet until Titanic struck an iceberg on 14 April 1912 at 11.40 pm and began to sink. At the time of the collision, Daniels, his friend Edbrooke and other stewards were sleeping in their bunks in the open berthing room on the port side of F deck just aft of the bottom of the First Class grand staircase. Neither had felt the impact with the iceberg, nor were awoken by it. They were instead woken up by a night watchman, who told them to get their lifebelts on and come up to the boat deck. At first, Daniels and his colleagues believed the disturbance to simply be an emergency boat drill and were therefore in a bad mood due to their interrupted sleep. Daniels remembered the lifeboat that had been allotted to him in case of an emergency and went to stand by it while he and the other stewards awaited orders and danced to the tune of the ship's orchestra which was playing on deck. Eventually, Daniels and his fellow third class stewards, got orders to get all the women and children from steerage up to their lifeboats and assist in loading them. Daniels got as many passengers up to the boat deck as possible and helped load them into Lifeboat No. 13, but had to forfeit his place in the lifeboat in favour of the ship's passengers, and only now did the severity of the situation become clear to him. Daniels assisted in loading the other lifeboats until all had been launched aside from Collapsible A and B which were stowed upon the Officers' Quarters. Daniels approached the site of Collapsible B on the port side, when a crewmember shouted from up on the Officer's Quarters if anyone had a pocketknife in order to cut the lashes that bolted the Collapsible to the deck. Daniels answered the call and handed his pocketknife over to the crewman who then proceeded to cut the lifeboat loose before it was pushed off the roof by a group of crewmen and landed upside down on the boat deck.
Daniels in the meantime, wandered over to the starboard side as he had noticed the ship's port list, and as he neared the bridge, Titanic took her final plunge. Water quickly rushed up the boat deck and Daniels stood knee-deep in the icy seawater before deciding to abandon ship. He jumped up onto the taffrail beside a davit and dived into the water, swimming away from the ship as he feared to be dragged under by the suction of the foundering vessel. A short while later, Daniels found a lifebuoy with another man already clinging to it and looked around, witnessing the Titanics stern rising out of the water and told the man to swim away from the suction as they were still too close to the Titanic. He and the other man both swam towards a black spot in the darkness which turned out to be the upturned Collapsible B with a crowd of men on it. Daniels managed to climb onto it and sat up on the keel of the lifeboat, while the other man was only able to partially climb onto the lifeboat and died from exposure later that night. From the Collapsible, Daniels watched the Titanics funnels collapse and heard an explosion whereupon he witnessed the Titanic breaking in half before her stern rose straight up in the air and sank beneath the waves. Daniels and the roughly 30 other men on the boat went on to cite the Lord's Prayer together as they were awaiting rescue during the night. After that, Daniels told the man that was sitting behind him on the keel, that he was tired and wanted to go to sleep. The other man berated him and told him to stay awake as he would not wake again if he dared sleep now. By the time dawn arrived, Daniels spotted the rescue ship RMS Carpathia heading towards them and exclaimed that he could see two ships coming to their rescue, however the other ship Daniels saw turned out to be one of the nearby icebergs. Thanks to the rising daylight, Lifeboat No. 4 and 12 spotted the upturned Collapsible and rescued the men from the stricken lifeboat. After their rescue, the lifeboats made way towards Carpathia which took all Titanic survivors aboard.
Daniels was handed coffee when first boarding Carpathia and despite hating the beverage, he still drank it as it was something that could at least warm him up. He was subsequently taken to the ship's infirmary and lay shivering in one of the beds, which made him miss a crew roll call which lead to him being initially reported missing instead of saved. Carpathia arrived in New York on 18 April 1912, where Daniels disembarked alongside the other surviving crew and was taken back to Plymouth aboard the SS Lapland. While on the Lapland, Daniels send a telegram to his father saying "Safe, SS Lapland, Sid", confusing his father as he believed his son was in the country of Lapland and had to look it up on a map. A few days later, Daniels' father received a letter from the White Star Line informing him that his son was missing, confusing the man again until a patron at his pub joked "Oh, can't you tell the handwriting on the cablegram?" Daniels returned home shortly thereafter and was instructed by the White Star Line to stay standby in case they'd be called upon to testify at any court hearings or enquiries. But Daniels was never called up to testify and six months after the Titanic disaster, Daniels returned to sea, again working as a third class steward on the RMS Olympic.