Interrupted Melody

One hundred years ago this week, a distant relative of mine started on a journey.

 I'm an amateur genealogist, focusing primarily on my own ancestry. My ancestry is strictly European American --- I describe my ethnic origins as "European Mutt". My mother's father's family --- the Harders --- came to America from Germany by way of Holland and ended up in New York. Her mother's ancestors --- the Fitzpatricks --- were Scotch-Irish supporters of the Stuart claims to the English throne and ended up coming to Virginia for their political health.

My father's paternal line --- the Spireses --- originated in England, and began in America (also in Virginia) with two teenage brothers who started out as indentured servants and ended up winning their freedom by fighting with George Washington at the Battle of Yorktown.

My grandfather married a young woman named Sadie Hartley, whose ancestors came from Connecticut and could trace their roots back to England in a direct line to a small city named Colne. Hartleys have lived in Colne since the middle ages and many descendants from my original Hartley ancestor, Rogerus or "Roger," still live there. One of these is a distant cousin of mine named Wallace Henry Hartley, who, as I said, started a journey 100 years ago this week.

Wallace Hartley

Wallace Hartley was born June 28, 1878 and raised in Colne, Lancashire, England. His father, Albion Hartley, was the choirmaster and Sunday School superintendent at Bethel Independent Methodist Chapel, where the family attended worship services. Wallace himself introduced the hymn "Nearer, My God, to Thee" to the congregation. Wallace studied at Colne’s Methodist day school, sang in Bethel’s choir and learned violin from a fellow congregation member.

After leaving school, Wallace started work with the Craven & Union Bank in Colne. When his family moved to Huddersfield, Wallace joined the Huddersfield Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1903, he left home to join the municipal orchestra in Bridlington, where he stayed for six years. He later moved to Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, and in 1909, he joined the Cunard Line as a musician, serving on the ocean liners RMS Lucania, RMS Lusitania and RMS Mauretania.

While serving on the Mauretania, the employment of Cunard musicians was transferred to the music agency C.W. & F.N. Black, which supplied musicians for Cunard and the White Star Line. This transfer changed Wallace's onboard status, as he was no longer counted as a member of the crew, but rather as a passenger, albeit one accommodated in second-class accommodation at the agency's expense. It later transpired that neither the shipping company nor the music agency had insured the musicians, with both claiming it was the others responsibility.

In April of 1912, Wallce was assigned to be the bandmaster for a new White Star Line ship. He was at first hesitant to again leave his fiancée, Maria Robinson, to whom he had recently proposed, but Wallce decided that working on the ship's maiden voyage would give him possible contacts for future work.

Musicians on a Maiden Voyage

For the first days of the journey, the orchestra performed as two separate entities: a quintet led by Wallace, that played at teatime, after-dinner concerts, and Sunday services, among other things; and the violin, cello and piano trio of Roger Bricoux, George Krins and Theodore Brailey, that played at the Á La Carte Restaurant and the Café Parisien.

Bricoux

Violinist Bricoux was born on June 1, 1891 in rue de Donzy, Cosne-sur-Loire, France. He was the son of a musician and the family moved to Monaco when he was a young boy. He was educated in various Catholic institutions in Italy. It was during his studies that he joined his first orchestra and won first prize at the Conservatory of Bologna for musical ability. After studying at the Paris Conservatory, he moved to England in 1910 to join the orchestra in the Grand Central Hotel in Leeds. At the end of 1911, he moved to Lille, France, and played in various locations throughout the city.

Brailey

Bricoux and pianist Brailey had served together on the Cunard steamer RMS Carpathia before joining the White Star Line. Brailey was born on Oct. 25, 1887 in Walthamstow, Essex. His father, William "Ronald" Brailey, was a well known figure of Spiritualism at the time. He studied piano at school and one of his first jobs was playing piano in a local hotel. In 1902, Brailey joined the Royal Lancashire Fusiliers regiment, signing for 12 years service as a musician. He was stationed in Barbados but resigned his commission prematurely in 1907. He returned to England and lived in London.

In 1911, he enlisted aboard ship, playing first on the RMS Saxonia, prior to joining the Cunard steamer RMS Carpathia in 1912, where he met Bricoux.

Krins

Krins was one of two other violinists in the orchestra. A Belgian, Krins wanted to join the army as a young man, however his parents persuaded him otherwise. He worked in his father's shop and played in La Grande Symphonie, Spa. In 1910, he moved to Paris to be first violin at Le Trianon Lyrique. He subsequently moved to London and played for two years at the Ritz Hotel until March 1912. He became bandmaster of the Trio String Orchestra which played near the Café Français. This led to him being recruited by CW & FN Black.

 

Also playing violin was John Law "Jock" Hume of Dumfries, Scotland. Having already played on at least five ships, Hume was recruited to play on the maiden voyage due to his good reputation as a musician. 

Woodward

Cellist John Wesley Woodward was born Sept. 11, 1879 in West Bromwich, England. He became well known in Oxford as a cello player, and following a period working at Eastbourne, joined the White Star Line as a musician in about 1909. He was engaged to a girl in London.

Woodward had previously made several journeys across the Atlantic, and three across the Mediterranean, so that he was quite a seasoned sailor. He was on board the RMS Olympic when she collided with HMS Hawke and had a narrow escape of losing his life, for he was in the cabin with three colleagues just where the Hawke struck, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that a rescue was accomplished.

Taylor

Percy Cornelius Taylor also played cello, as well as the piano. He was a resident of London.

The eighth musician was bass violist John Frederick Preston Clarke of Liverpool, England.

On April 14, 1912, four days into the crossing, the peaceful journey changed for everyone on board the great ship, which was, of course, RMS Titanic.

About 375 miles south of Newfoundland, the ship hit an iceberg at 11:40 p.m. The glancing collision caused Titanic's hull plates to buckle inwards in a number of locations on her starboard side and opened five of her 16 watertight compartments to the sea.

During the next two and a half hours, the ship gradually filled with water and sank. Passengers and some crew members were evacuated in lifeboats, many of which were launched only partly filled. A disproportionate number of men – more than 90 percent of those in Second Class – were left aboard due to a "women and children first" protocol followed by the officers loading the lifeboats, which were not enough to accommodate all aboard the ship – the designers of the ship felt that enough lifeboats were not necessary because Titanic was regarded as "unsinkable".

Wallace Hartley and his fellow band members assembled in the first class lounge and started playing music to help keep the passengers calm. They later moved to the forward half of the boat deck, where they continued to play as the crew loaded the lifeboats.

Just before 2:20 a.m., Titanic broke up and sank bow-first with more than 1,000 people still on board. Those in the water died within minutes from hypothermia caused by immersion in the freezing ocean. The 710 survivors were taken aboard from the lifeboats by the Carpathia a few hours later.

Among those who went into the water were all eight members of Titanic's orchestra, including my cousin, Wallace Hartley.

Many of the survivors said that Wallace and the band continued to play until the very end. None of the band members survived the sinking and the story of them playing to the end became a popular legend. One survivor who clambered aboard 'Collapsible A' claimed to have seen Wallace and his band standing just behind the first funnel, by the Grand Staircase. He went on to say that he saw three of them washed off while the other five held on to the railing on top the Grand Staircase's deckhouse, only to be dragged down with the bow, just before Wallace exclaimed, "Gentlemen, I bid you farewell!" A newspaper at the time reported "the part played by the orchestra on board the Titanic in her last dreadful moments will rank among the noblest in the annals of heroism at sea."

Though the final song played by the band is unknown, "Nearer, My God, to Thee"  – which Wallace is said to have introduced to his church at Colne  – has gained popular acceptance. Former bandmates claimed that Wallace said he would either play "Nearer, My God, to Thee" or "O God, Our Help in Ages Past" if he was ever on a sinking ship, but Walter Lord's book, A Night to Remember popularized wireless officer Harold Bride's account of hearing the song "Autumn".

Clarke

Clarke's body was recovered and buried at Mount Olivet Cemetery, Halifax, Nova Scotia on May 8, 1912. He was 30 years old. He was wearing a grey muffler, his orchestra uniform, green socks and a crucifix. His effects included a diamond pin, a gold watch, keys, a knife, a sovereign case, a pocketbook, a memo book, eight shillings, and a gold ring engraved with his initials.

Hume

Hume was 21 years old when he died, unaware that his fiancée, Mary Costin, was pregnant with his child. His body was recovered by a cable repair ship, the Mackay–Bennet. Like Clarke, he was buried at Halifax on May 8, 1912. A memorial was erected for Hume in Dock Park, Dumfries.

On April 30, 1912, Hume's father, Andrew, received the following note from the agency: "Dear Sir: We shall be obliged if you will remit us the sum of 5s. 4d., which is owing to us as per enclosed statement. We shall also be obliged if you will settle the enclosed uniform account." The letter caused controversy at the time when it was reprinted in the Amalgamated Musicians Union's monthly newsletter. Andrew Hume decided not to settle the bill.

Bricoux was 20 years old when he died. His body was never recovered. In 1913, after his apparent disappearance, he was declared a "deserter" by the French army. It was not until 2000, that he was eventually officially registered as dead in France, mainly due to the efforts of the Association Française du Titanic. In 2000, the same association unveiled a memorial plaque to Bricoux in Cosne-sur-Loire.

Brailey was 24, Krins was 23 and Taylor and Woodward were both 32. None of their bodies were ever recovered. Taylor's estate was claimed by his widow, an actress named Clara Talbot.

Wallace Hartley's funeral procession.

Wallace Hartley's body was recovered by the Mackay–Bennet almost two weeks after the sinking. He was transferred to the Arabic and sent to England. Wallace's funeral took place in Colne on May 18, 1912. One thousand people attended his funeral, while 40,000 lined the route of his funeral procession.

Apart from his notable and tragically short tenure as leader of the band on the "Titanic," Wallace Hartley is also known for introducing the tritone substitution to ballroom dance music. In classical music, a substitute dominant is a chord sufficiently akin to the dominant to be reasonably set against the tonic, and yet remote enough to give a chromatically expressive, large-scale dissonance to the structure. For example, using C major instead of E major in the key of A major.

In jazz, a tritone substitution is the chord substitution of a chord with a dominant chord that has its root a tritone away from the original. The tritone substitution is one of the most common substitutions found in jazz and was the precursor to more complex substitution patterns like Coltrane changes. Tritone substitutions are sometimes used in improvisation — often to create tension during a solo. They were first used by musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie in the 1940s, Duke Ellington, Art Tatum, Coleman Hawkins, Roy Eldridge and Benny Goodman.

Wallace is buried in Colne, where a 10-foot headstone, containing a carved violin at its base, was erected in his honor. A memorial to Wallace, topped by his bust, was erected in 1915 outside the Albert Street Methodist Church in Colne where Wallace began his musical career. Wallace's large Victorian terraced house in West Park Street, Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, bears a blue plaque to remind passersby that this was the bandleader's home.

As of 2001, Wallace Hartley's name was still being used when naming new streets and housing in the town of Colne. In 2008, the pub chain J.D. Wetherspoon named a newly acquired hotel in Colne after the bandleader.

Postscript: In March 2013, after two years of in-depth trace analysis by The Forensic Science Service on behalf of auctioneers Henry Aldridge and Son, and seven years of evidence-gathering by the Wiltshire-based auction house, it was announced that a violin found in a British man's attic inside a leather case with the initials "W. H. H." was the instrument used by Hartley^] The identification was helped by an engraving on the German-made^[8] violin which his fiancee (Maria Robinson) had placed on the instrument in 1910 which read: 'For Wallace on the occasion of our engagement from Maria.'Further tests by a silver expert from the Gemological Association of Great Britain confirmed that the plate on the base of the violin was original and that the metal engraving done on behalf of Maria Robinson was contemporary with those made in 1910. A CT scan enabled experts to view 3D images of the inside of the violin. The fine detail of the scan meant experts could examine the construction, interior and the glue holding the instrument together showing signs of possible restoration. While researching the origins of the violin, the auctioneers Henry Aldridge and Son and Christian Tennyson-Ekeberg, biographer of Wallace Hartley and author of Nearer Our God to Thee discovered the transcript of a telegram sent to the Provincial Secretary of Nova Scotia, Canada, dated July 19, 1912 in the diary of Hartley's grieving fiance, Ms. Robinson, in which she stated:

"I would be most grateful if you could convey my heartfelt thanks to all who have made possible the return of my late fiance's violin."^[11]

After Maria Robinson's death in 1939, her sister gave the violin to the Bridlington Salvation Army and told its leader, a Major Renwick, about the instrument's association with the Titanic.The violin was later passed on to a violin teacher who gave it to the current owner's mother. "It's been in the same family for over 70 years," Henry Aldridge and Sons state. Craig Sopin, the owner of one of the world's largest collections of Titanic memorabilia, a leading Titanic expert, and a general skeptic of Titanic claims believes the violin is "Hartley's violin and not a fraud" reports ABC News.

The Hartley violin was exhibited in the United States, at Titanic Branson and Titanic Pigeon Forge, the world's largest Titanic museums. It was sold by auction house Henry Aldridge & Son inDevizes, Wiltshire, England on Oct. 19, 2013 for 1,454,400 dollars) as reported byBBC,  NBC and The Washington Post.