MEMORIES: Tile recalls a Titanic loss for Brightlingsea

Around the interior walls at All Saints Church in Brightlingsea is a frieze of wall tiles commemorating the mariners from the town who died at sea.

These tiles were instituted by its vicar, Canon Arthur Pertwee, who originally intended them as a memorial for those lost in the Great Storm of December 1872.

In 1883, thirty-six men lost their lives at sea, and each of them was given their own memorial plaque.

The tradition of adding another each time someone from Brightlingsea was lost at sea has continued ever since.

The total number has now grown to over two-hundred individual tiles.

These tiles are unique, and give an insight to Brightlingsea’s maritime past but one tile stands out above others.

The tile for Sidney Conrad Siebert, who died on April 15 1912 during the R M S Titanic disaster is by far the biggest draw for visitors.

Sidney Conrad Siebert was born on September 23 1882 in Wandsworth, London.

He married Winifred Rose Savage on October 5 1907 at All Saints in Brightlingsea and they had three daughters, Winifred, Lillian and Constance.

According to the 1901 census, he was a yacht block maker or pulley maker in Brightlingsea, living in Nelson Street.

Between 1901 and the next census in 1911, he had secured work at sea and moved to Southampton.

Before being transferred to the Titanic, he was formerly on the crew of the R M S Oceanic, which was a transatlantic ocean liner built for the White Star Line.

Sidney worked as a bedroom steward, earning £3.15 a week, which in modern terms is around £340.

No information exists as to why he transferred to the Titanic, but he may have been encouraged by the White Star Line, as Titanic didn’t have a permanent crew.

Sidney was again a bedroom steward in the First-Class cabins.

The vast majority of crew members were casual workers who only came aboard the ship a few hours before she sailed from Southampton on April 10.

Titanic had twenty lifeboats which consisted of two wooden cutters, which held a maximum of of 40 people, 14 standard wooden lifeboats with 65 people in each and four collapsible canvas lifeboats with 47 each.

The lifeboats could only accommodate 1,178 people but there were about 2,224 people on board.

No. 4 lifeboat was located on the port side of the boat deck, next to No. 1 funnel, immediately behind the No. 2 lifeboat.

This lifeboat was one of the last launched at 01.50 a.m. It was under the command of Quartermaster Walter Perkis with forty-two people on board, ten of whom were crew.

By the time the lifeboat reached R M S Carpathia at 8am sixty occupants were recorded as being rescued from this lifeboat.

No evidence exists of Sidney’s time on the Titanic but he was pulled from the water by No. 4 lifeboat, and died from exposure to the cold.

The Titanic remains one of the most famous passenger ships to sink, with 1,490 lives lost.