The Band That Played On (35 page)

The violin itself had been photographed deep inside the case, which was not a normal violin case but a thick brown leather bag that looked more like an old-fashioned family doctor’s bag. It had a handle but it also had two straps, possibly two inches wide, that could easily have been put over his shoulders. On the side it was initialed in black letters W. H. H. The violin looked golden brown and was in good condition apart from some minor erosion on the tailpiece. It had perhaps been restored because included in the belongings was a copy of a 1903 book,
The Repairing and Restoration of Violins
by Horace Petherick, which had been signed to “Miss Robinson” by one “J. Griffin” on December 8, 1915.

The other material had been kept either in or with the case. Some of it, like the sheet music to a song called “The Ship That Will Never Return” by F. V. St. Clair
¹
and the violin book given to Maria in 1915, obviously weren’t part of Hartley’s collection, but other material could have been. There was some sheet music dated April 1911 from the Will Rositer Band and Orchestra Club and, most significantly, sheet music to “Nearer, My God, to Thee.”

What was interesting about this sheet music for “Nearer, My God, to Thee” was that the music was not Arthur Sullivan’s “Propior Deo,” Lowell Mason’s “Bethany” (or “Bethel”), or even the Church of England’s “Horbury,”, but a 1902 tune by Lewis Carey that was performed by the Australian contralto Ada Crossley, who would later appear at the memorial concert for the
Titanic
musicians held at the Royal Albert Hall. She first appeared in London in 1895, played five times before Queen Victoria, and toured in America. This version of “Nearer, My God, to Thee” was one of her signature tunes.

It raised the question as to whether this was the version, or
a
version, that the band played on August 15, 1912. Was Carey’s music, made popular by Ada Crossley, the setting that most people at the time were familiar with because it had been taken around the world? If it was the one played, could this explain why so many people from different countries and church affiliations instantly recognized it? If it was added to the music case after Hartley’s death, it still could be because Maria knew that he played this tune.

Other material appeared to be family memorabilia with no obvious connection to Hartley: a postcard to a Miss Laura Crocker in Upper Clapton, a First World War medal given to a Thomas Robinson, a Bible containing the family tree of a William Davies who married Eleanor Young on the island of St. Helena in 1849. There was no sign of music composed by Hartley, which was rumored to have been in the case when he died.

Through making inquiries I was able to establish that this violin did exist. The photos weren’t the result of digital manipulation. However, everyone connected with it was bound to a vow of confidentiality. This was partly because the instrument was still being subjected to historical and scientific tests and partly because the optimum sale date would be the
Titanic
’s centenary year. Tens of thousands of UK pounds had already been spent attempting to verify its authenticity as the actual violin used by Wallace Hartley on his final voyage. All that I could deduce for certain was that it had come down through the family of Maria Robinson and that the present owner was a man.

If this object was what it appeared to be, it made an extraordinary story. If it wasn’t what it appeared to be, it was still an extraordinary story, but this time one either of forgery or incorrect attribution. It could, for example, have belonged to Hartley but not have been taken on the
Titanic
or have been commissioned by Maria after his death to replace a real one that was lost. I took the photo of the violin to David Rattray, who is a luthier, instrument custodian at the Royal Academy of Music, and author of
Masterpieces of Italian Violin Making
. His guess was that the violin was of German origin, probably from the late eighteenth century, and that in 1910 it could have been bought for £30 to £40.

Although I didn’t mention Hartley’s name, for fear of leaking the story, he was skeptical that a wooden musical instrument could have survived the sinking. Any contact with water and the glue would have dissolved, leaving the violin to fall into its constituent parts. He mentioned the well-attested case of the “Red Diamond” Stradivarius, which was swept into the Pacific Ocean on the California coast in the 1950s and was painstakingly reconstructed by master craftsman Hans Weischar.

Paul Parsons, who had restored Arthur Lancaster’s tribute model, also didn’t believe a violin could last in such inclement conditions. First, there was water, then salt, then movement, and finally freezing temperatures. Hartley’s body floated for ten days and we know that by the time the
Mackay-Bennett
arrived, there was rain, dense fog, and a heavy swell. “It would have disintegrated,” Paul Parsons told me. “The glues that are used on an instrument are water soluble. Even in very cold temperatures the glue would eventually turn to gel within a very short space of time.”

Yet reports by the rescue team suggest that because of the way the life jackets were made, the upper portions of the bodies were kept well above the waterline. I was surprised to discover that Fred Clarke’s business card, which had been with his body in the water for eight days, had only a small watermark on the lower edge. Similarly, the letter that Wallace Hartley had from his friend Bill looked remarkably undamaged and, significantly, the ink hadn’t even run. It appeared to have had less contact with water than a letter accidentally dropped in a bathtub.

The violin’s possible price of £30 to £40 at first appears expensive for an engagement present around 1910, bearing in mind that it represented up to ten months’ pay for a ship’s musician and that Maria Robinson had no job. How could she have afforded such a gift? The clue may be in her father’s death in 1909, close to the time of the engagement. He unexpectedly fell into a diabetic coma and died three days later at the age of only fifty-one. Although he left no will, his work as a cloth manufacturer would have left him wealthy and his money would have been passed to his four children. In the 1911 census both Margaret and Maria were listed as being women of “private means.”

If Maria did get the violin back, what would have happened to it subsequently? There was no mention of it in her will when she died unmarried in 1939, so she may already have passed it on, possibly to her sister Margaret who was also unmarried. From there it could have gone either to Mary, the youngest sister, who married John Wood in 1910 and had a son, also John, in 1911, or to her brother William, who married Florence Noble in 1908 and had Helen in 1913 and Margaret in 1915. John Wood, Mary Robinson’s son, married Pauline Longstaffe in 1957, but they don’t appear to have had children, so the most likely inheritor would be a son of William’s daughters.

It could be that for years the violin was considered to be of sentimental rather than commercial value. It has been only in the last two decades or so that prices for
Titanic
memorabilia have rocketed. The record for a single item so far is £101,000 and for a collection of pieces £235,000. The owner of this instrument must have thought they would be better off with a cash reward than an old violin in a leather case languishing in a cellar or attic.

The primary question must be—even if it is shown to be the right age and to have had contact with seawater—how can it be definitively proved to have been the violin that Hartley played on the deck of the
Titanic
? There are no photos of him on that trip that can be blown up for detail.

The most compelling evidence is the diary with the draft letter. This suggests a feasible story of a violin rescued from the
Titanic
being returned to Maria Robinson. Other names on the same page can be verified as people who were alive at the time and living in the Leeds area: Arthur Roberts, of 10 Eldon Street, was a twenty-three-year-old shop assistant; “St Johns Adel” was a reference to St. John’s Church in Adel, a district of Leeds. The note “letter from Mary” most likely refers to Mary Hartley. Unfortunately, there are no letters between Maria and Frederick Mathers in the Nova Scotia Archives to corroborate the diary draft.

If the violin turns out to be Hartley’s
Titanic
instrument, it will be a huge media event and, one hundred years after their deaths, will bring the band back into the limelight. People will again be asking the question first asked in 1912: “Who were these musicians?” Those close to this unfolding story hope that the tests will be completed in time for it to go on a world tour before being auctioned in 2012. If it is proved to be what the vendor believes it is, it will be the most expensive
Titanic
artifact ever auctioned.

In June 2010 British composer David Bedford premiered
The Wreck of the Titanic
, a large-scale work for orchestra and choir, at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall. Commissioned by the Lancashire Sinfonietta and three music services in Cheshire and Lancashire, it featured the band playing the tunes of the era along with new music based on such influences as the rhythms of hammers beating in a shipyard and the tapping of the Morse code. The leader of the Liverpool Youth Orchestra played with Arthur Lancaster’s tribute violin.

No one associated with this violin appears to have been aware of the fact that Arthur Lancaster’s son was Seth Lancaster, the twenty-year-old cellist who was offered a job on the
Titanic
back in December 1911. It was only during the first week of April 1912 that he learned the Black brothers had moved him to the
Mauretania
to take the place of Roger Bricoux. He had fully expected to be playing alongside Wallace Hartley on the
Titanic
. When the
Titanic
sank, he was three days behind it on the
Mauretania
, which had left Liverpool on April 13, and he arrived in New York on April 19, the day after the
Carpathia
arrived.

When Arthur set about making his tribute violin, he was no doubt not only grieving for his friend Wallace Hartley but keenly aware that but for the late switch he could also have been mourning the death of his own son. When news of the sinking was first received in Colne, anxious friends deluged the Lancaster home at 5 Smith Street to find out what had become of Seth.

A measure of Hartley’s stature among his contemporaries and of the affection that Arthur Lancaster had for him only came to light in 2010 when Paul Parsons began restoring the violin. After carefully removing the back, he noticed there was writing on the inside at the upper top that wouldn’t have been seen for almost one hundred years. It was in such a position that it could only have been put there as it was being made. Part of this was Lancaster’s name, address, and the date of the work—June 29, 1912. The rest of it was a moving tribute to the man who by word and example had led the
Titanic
’s band to play on.

In memory of my friend Mr Wallace Hartley, the heroic leader of the ill-fated
Titanic
. Life is dear to those we love. Hoping that this violin will be as pure in tone as my friend was pure in heart.

Message by Arthur Lancaster of Colne inside the tribute violin.

S
OURCES

I
used the following libraries and archives: Birkenhead Central Library; Brooklyn Public Library; Compton Estate Office, Eastbourne; Devonshire Collection, Chatsworth House; Colne Library; British Library; British Newspaper Library; Bristol Record Office; Magdalen College, Oxford; College of Psychic Studies, London; Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester; American Federation of Musicians; Companies House, London; Conservatoire Royal de Liege; Chicago History Museum; Sotheby’s of London; East Riding of Yorkshire Library Service (Bridlington Local Studies Library); East Sussex Library, Eastbourne; General Register Office for Scotland; the National Archives of Scotland; Dumfries Archive Centre; Dumfries Public Library; Harvard Theatre Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University; Liverpool Philharmonic; the Hymn Society of the United States and Canada; Performing Rights Society, London; Gloucester Cathedral; McMaster University Library, Hamilton, Ontario; London Metropolitan Archives; Lambeth Archives; University of Stirling, Scotland; Maritime History Archive, Memorial University of Newfoundland; Lancashire Sinfonietta; National Library of Jamaica; Merseyside Maritime Museum; Francis Hurd Stadler
Titanic
Collection, Missouri Historical Society Archives, St. Louis; Special Collections, Mitchell Library, Glasgow; National Art Library, Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Nova Scotia Archives & Record Management; Special Collections, Royal Academy of Music, London; Royal College of Music, London; Ritz Hotel, London; Prudential Insurance, Stirling, Scotland; Halle Orchestra, Manchester; Royal Society of Musicians, London; Southport Library; Lancashire Fusiliers Museum; Royal Military School of Music, Kneller Hall, Twickenham; UK Documents; National Maritime Museum, Greenwich; Royal Bank of Scotland; the Grand Hotel, Eastbourne; Government Register Office (UK); National Archives, Kew, Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, Holywood, Northern Ireland.