The Titanic and the City of Widows It Left Behind

Julie Cook

Pen & Sword

£19.99

The city is Southampton and among the women desperately scanning the survivors’ list outside the White Star office is Emily Bessant, mother of five and now a widow. Her husband William had signed on as a fireman at £6 a month, a welcome wage in hard times. But now she must survive alone. Julie Cook is the Bessants’ great-granddaughter and a Southampton resident. Her focus is on the bereaved families and how they coped, aided, cautiously, by the Titanic Disaster Fund. Sailors today may feel grateful for the next big Southampton sailing in May 1912 when 300 crew members walked off RMS Olympic, protesting against inadequate life-rafts: a significant development towards SOLAS legislation.