George Kemish, 238 Shirley Road: Saved.

George Kemish (left) was born in Southampton in late1889. His father, also called George, married Emma (Emily) Lomer in 1887 and in 1901 the family were living at 1 Grove Road in Shirley, (the house, on the north side of the street at the Shirley Road end, still stands). George senior, who was a coal porter, and Emma are listed with their five children of whom George aged 11 is second eldest. By 1911 the family have moved the short distance to 238 Shirley Road. This house formerly stood on the west side of the street just north of Nightingale Grove. Modern flats now occupy the site. On the 1911 census George and Emma are shown with their six children. The eldest, Benjamin, is working on a dairy farm and George, who was unmarried, is already a seaman. In April 1912 George signed-on the Titanic giving the family home as his address. He gave his age as 24, although census records show him to have been 22. He signed-on as a fireman for which he would have received wages of £6 a month. His last ship had been the Olympic. George later said the Titanic was thought of as a fine ship and the cream of Southampton’s seamen and engine room workers were anxious to join her. He also described what the boiler rooms on the ship were like: ‘She had six boiler rooms (stokeholds) each boiler room had its own pump room for bilge pumping and boiler feeds etc, and five boilers abreast in each boiler room, 53 firemen, 22 trimmers and 5 leading fireman on each watch. I was on the 8-12 watch. Being a new ship on her maiden voyage (everything clean) she was a good job in the stokeholds (not what we were accustomed to in other old ships – slogging our guts out and nearly roasted with the heat).’ George survived the sinking, escaping in lifeboat 9, launched from the starboard side at 1.30am under the command of Boatswain's Mate, Albert Haines. The boats capacity was sixty-five people but it contained only between forty-five and forty-eight survivors. He did not give evidence to either the US Senate or British Inquiries and travelled back home on the Lapland from New York to Plymouth and then by train to Southampton arriving late in the evening at the Terminus Station on Monday 29th April. The photograph below shows George (second right) at the station with some of his colleagues In June 1955 George, then aged 65 and living at Begonia Road in Bassett, wrote to author, Walter Lord, in response to his request for information from Titanic survivors. He explained what happened after the ship had struck the iceberg: ‘Engineers came up and ordered all fireman down below to draw all fires, because excessive steam pressure was blowing joints etc. - All bulkhead watertight doors were closed so we had to go along what they called the working alleyway and down over the tops of the boilers and escape ladders. We certainly had a hell of a time putting those fires out.’

At about 12.45am they got the captain's orders for all hands to go to the boat stations. George made his way up to the boat deck which was by now thronged with people. At first women and children were reluctant to get in the boats and the some of them left only half full. After a while, however, it became obvious that the ship was going to founder and there was a tremendous scrabble for the remaining places. George quickly realised how desperate the situation was: ‘We had been throwing deck-chairs and anything moveable overboard. I took a flying leap intending to grab the dangling boat falls and slither down them to the water - but I missed them (I reckon a parachute would have been handy in that drop). I swam until I got aboard that no. 9 or no 11 boat I don't know to this day what boat it was. A deck hand named Paddy McGough (able-seaman George Mcgough was saved in boat 9) took charge of her.’ A number of survivors died of exposure or frost bite after they had been recued and were aboard the Carpathia. On the first night aboard, an officer asked George to go to the mortuary to identify one of the dead men, whom the officer thought might be a Titanic crew member. George refused. ‘I jibbed. It may have been one of my mates. I had had enough.’ On arriving in New York the surviving crew members were taken to Wright’s Seamens’ Mission on West Street and supplied with new clothing: ‘Got two suits of clothes – 2 pairs of boots, 2 shirts, 2 suits of underwear. Ties, socks etc. Gee I looked a typical yank when I got home.’ Back in Southampton the crew were told to stay there in case they were needed to give evidence to the enquiry in London. They were paid 5s a day. ‘I was home for three months and then went to sea again. All we got out of it was – what would have been the normal trip’s pay – 23 days, our money then was only £5 a month. Our seamens’ union gave us £3 for loss of kit. A‘promise’ from the White Star Line of a job for life. I have never heard anything from them. I have had long unemployment at times, and some very hard times, at present I work as a fitter’s mate – when I can get work. Never mind I suppose I am lucky to be here at all.’ He died at the Royal South Hants Hospital in February 6 1966, aged 76 and was buried at South Stoneham Cemetery in Swaythling.