‘this ship will never reach america’

Close to 1,500 people – including some from Kent – lost their lives when the Titanic sank on the morning of April 15, 1912.

William Beere was born in Maidstone in 1893, the son of Susanne Beere.

The 1891 census two years earlier described his mother as an unmarried servant living at 4 Rocky Hill, Maidstone.

Mr Beere found work as a printer labourer, but he signed on as crew to the Titanic aged 19 on April 6, 1912. He received wages of £3 10s a week (£3.50) working as a kitchen porter. His body was never recovered.

Richard Rouse was born in Trottiscliffe in 1857, the son of a police constable and one of seven children. The family later moved to Love Lane at Milton, near Sittingbourne, and by 1881, Mr Rouse was living as a boarder on Quay Street, Milton, with his profession described as brickfield labourer.

In 1891, he married a young widow Charity Anderson, who already had a daughter, and the couple settled in George Street where they had a daughter called Gladys. Mr Rouse lost his job during the coal strikes of 1912 and found it difficult to get another.

His stepdaughter had by that time married and emigrated with her husband to Cleveland, Ohio, where they were prospering. It was decided that he should join them there, and once he was settled, send for his wife and daughter to join him.

Mr Rouse boarded the Titanic in Southampton as a thirdclass passenger with a ticket costing cost £8 1s (£8.10). His wife went to see him off from the dock, but when she saw the ship she was overcome with fear and tried to persuade him not to board. She allegedly said: “This ship is too big; it will never reach America,” but he shrugged off her worries, repeating the manufacturer’s boast that she was unsinkable.

He died in the disaster and his body was never recovered.

His wife and daughter did later make the journey to the States. Charity died in Freemont, Ohio, in 1936, and Gladys died in Florida in 1985.