John Edward Hart, by his own testimony to the Parliamentary Inquiry, was the only one of eight third class bedroom stewards to survive the accident. His testimony is among the most lengthy there is on the question of how third class passengers were dealt with by the crew in the aftermath of the accident. In many respects Hart's testimony is in accord with that of several other stewards who appeared before the Parliamentary Inquiry.[2] Each testified, at least in some part, that they received instructions to see that all passengers were out of their cabins with their lifebelts on and to direct passengers to the upper decks. There is basic agreement among the stewards that these instructions came during the interval between 12:00AM and 12:30AM.[3] In the case of second and third class stewards assigned to the quarters at the rear of the ship on the lower decks (D, E, and F Decks), the chief second steward, George Dodd and the chief third class steward James Kiernan are variously mentioned as ones from whom the instruction emanated. But where it originated from higher up in the hierarchy, if it did at all, remains largely unknown.[4] Neither Dodd nor Kiernan , nor Sidney Sedunary, an assistant chief third class steward who is mentioned by Hart (Titanic Project, Brit. Inq., 9909), survived the accident.

But there is one crucial respect in which Hart's testimony is unique among the stewards, and uncorroborated by any of them. Hart testified to having personally brought two large groups of passengers to the Boat Deck, and further, to have seen them loaded into two lifeboats, which he identified as Lifeboats 8 and 15.

The sequence of events, according to Hart's testimony--which then is recapitulated by Lord in A Night to Remember (1955: 65-6)--is as follows. Immediately after an order to "pass the women and children up," around 12:30AM, Hart organized a party of 30 third class passengers, mostly women and children, and from the quarters he was responsible for, located in the extreme rear of the ship. He led them along the length of C Deck to the first class quarters in the front of the ship, up to the Boat Deck, and delivered them to Lifeboat 8 just as it was being lowered (Titanic Project, Brit. Inq., 1999: 9954). That would have been roughly between 12:50 and 1:10AM (Appendix).[5] Hart testified that he then returned to the rear of the ship and brought together some 28 more passengers, again women and children--"[having] some little trouble in getting back owing to the males wanting to get to the Boat Deck" (Titanic Project, Brit. Inq., 1999: 9965)--and brought them to Lifeboat 15. After his passengers were loaded into the ship, First Officer Murdoch, who was in charge of the loading of lifeboats on that side of the Boat Deck, ordered Hart into Lifeboat 15 as well. The latter was launched around 1:35AM; one of the last boats to leave from the rear of the Boat Deck.

Much of Hart's testimony is very detailed, and therefore superficially persuasive, particularly when it comes to the routes he claimed to have taken in both his putative trips to the Boat Deck, the number and composition of the passengers he took, and the lifeboats to which he brought them. Nonetheless, when examined closely there are serious evidentiary difficulties, indeed outright contradictions of fact in his account.

In the first place, there is clear evidence that no large group of third class passengers was delivered to Lifeboat 8 at the last minute (or at any time). As stated, Hart testified that he brought 30 passengers--most of them women and children--to this boat just as it was being lowered. But there weren't any third class passengers loaded on Lifeboat 8 at all. And it would have been noteworthy if there had been, since over all of the 6 lifeboats launched from the front of the ship up in the first wave of boats to leave, of which Lifeboat 8 was only one, there were at most a handful of passengers loaded altogether that were not from the first class. There is virtually no disagreement about this. The two most credible listings of lifeboat occupants--that of Philip Hind's Encyclopedia Titanica and of the researcher Michael Findlay (see Geller, 1998: 196-216), respectively-both indicate (Appendix) that Lifeboat 8 contained exclusively first class women, their female servants and their children; 23 or 24 passengers altogether. The remainder of the occupants were probably 4 crew members: Alfred Crawford, a first class bedroom steward, Thomas Jones, a seaman who was placed in charge of the boat, and two others, whose identity is not known with any certainty (Encyclopedia Titanica 1996-2001).

Steward Crawford provided detailed testimony to the Parliamentary Inquiry on the loading and launching of Lifeboat 8, and Jones testified at the Senate subcommittee hearings. Neither testified to a contingent of third class passengers being brought to or loaded into that lifeboat.[6] Crawford (Titanic Project, Brit. Inq., 1999: 1808) states explicitly that as far as he could tell 'nearly all' the passengers were women from the first class. More directly relevant to Hart's account is the following exchange between Crawford and WD Harbison (representing the third class passengers) of the Parliamentary Inquiry:

HARBISON: Did you get any instructions from Captain Smith or any of the officers as to what you do then [immediately after the accident]?
CRAWFORD: The order came down below to see the passengers out, and get the lifebelts on and put them on the boat deck.

HARBISON: Did you see any of the stewards of the second or third class carry out the order which had been given?
CRAWFORD: No (Titanic Project, Brit. Inq., 1999: 17980-2).

One can speculate, of course, that the 30 third class passengers brought up by Hart didn't make it into Lifeboat 8 at all, perhaps unbeknownst to Hart, and that these passengers were never seen by those who launched that boat either. This is a stretch, but if it were so, it would mean about a one-half hour wait for these passengers before they were actually loaded onto any lifeboats. It probably wasn't until 1:35AM that third class women and children were loaded into lifeboats in any significant number (Appendix: Tables 1-4).[7] In the interim, some 4 or 5 lifeboats were loaded and launched from the rear of the ship.

If we adopt the conventional Parliamentary Inquiry departure time-table, on the port side, where the women passengers presumably were left by Hart, Lifeboat 10 left the ship at 1:20AM, probably with a plurality of second class passengers and a significant proportion of first class as well, almost all women and children. At most there were only six third class passengers-this following the Encyclopedia Titanica (Appendix: Tables 1, 3)---and out of those six, four were males (Encyclopedia Titanica 1996-2001). Clearly these were not members of Hart's putative group.[8] The occupancy in Lifeboat 12 which left at 1:25AM and Lifeboat 14 which left at 1:30AM, according to both occupancy lists (Appendix: Tables 1, 2), contains almost no passengers from the third class either. As for the boats loaded on the starboard side during this same period, Lifeboat 9, which left at 1:20AM, and Lifeboat 11 which left at 1:25AM, were both primarily occupied by second class passengers, and again according to both occupancy lists contained very few third class passengers. Looking at the less conventional Quinn departure time-table (Appendix: Tables 3, 4), we reach a similar conclusion. It is true (see n. 7) that applying the Encyclopedia Titanica data set to Quinn's schedule would indicate a significant number of third class passengers being loaded into Lifeboat 13 at 1:25AM, but that would still have been more than one half hour after Hart delivered them to the boat deck, since Quinn gives the departure time for Lifeboat 8 as 12:50AM, not 1:10AM.

It wasn't until between 1:25AM and 1:35AM then that the occupancy by class in the lifeboats did indeed change. By any of the combinations of departure time-tables and occupancy lists, 80% or more of surviving third class passengers were loaded into 5 boats after 1:25AM, and more likely after 1:35AM (Appendix: Tables 1-4): Lifeboats 13, 15 and 16,[9] and Collapsibles Lifeboats C and D. If the original 30 women and children Hart testified to bringing to the Boat Deck some time between 12:50 and 1:10AM entered lifeboats it would have been into one or more of these 5 boats. One cannot completely rule this out perhaps, but it does seem to us a very forced and unsubstantiated reconciliation of Hart's testimony with the facts.

Equally problematic is Hart's account of his rescuing a second group of 28 passengers. He testified (Titanic Project, Brit. Inq., 1999: 9988-10000), that he loaded 22 women and 3 children into Lifeboat 15,[10] and that this group was the last of some seventy passengers and crew to be loaded into that boat (Titanic Project, Brit. Inq., 1999: 1035).[11] In the course of his testimony, Hart also testified that all but 18 of the 70 or so passengers and crew on Lifeboat 15 were women and children (Titanic Project, Brit. Inq., 1999: 10035-10040). [12] But the evidence does not appear to support this (Appendix).

First, gainsaying Hart's account of the second group of passengers, is the detailed testimony of the first class bathroom steward, Samuel Rule. Rule, who was instrumental in the loading of this boat, makes no mention in his testimony of any group of 25 women and children, having been led by a steward and loaded into the lifeboat. Indeed, Rule is questioned extensively on the very question of who was in this lifeboat, and asserts that the majority of passengers in this boat were male (Titanic Project, Brit. Inq., 1999: 6539-40). Very similar testimony to Rule's is given by a trimmer, George Cavell (Titanic Project, Brit. Inq., 1999: 4306-18). It is also supported by the Encyclopedia Titanica data, which indicates there were 16 women and children from the third class in Lifeboat 15 out of 40 third class passengers altogether.[13]

To appreciate how Rule's and Cavell's testimony conflicts with Hart's consider the following exchanges before the Parliamentary Inquiry. Here is Hart's description of loading his passengers to Lifeboat 15:

SOLICITOR GENERAL: Did you bring up any more?
HART: Yes, about 25.

SOLICITOR GENERAL: A band of women and children
HART: Yes.

SOLICITOR GENERAL: Were those all people from the rooms you were responsible for?
HART: No, also from other sections.
SOLICITOR GENERAL: Were they all third class passengers?
HART: Yes.
SOLICITOR GENERAL: Did you guide them by the same route?
HART: Yes
SOLICITOR GENERAL: Where did you take them to?
HART: I took them to the only boat that was left then boat NO. 15.

SOLICITOR GENERAL: when you got with these people to No. 15 was there room for them in it?
HART: Yes, they were placed in it.

SOLICITOR GENERAL: When you got to boat 15 with these 25 people, were there any people in boat No. 15 already?
HART: Yes.
SOLICITOR GENERAL: About how many, or who?
HART: Well, I can give you a rough estimate.
SOLICITOR GENERAL: Yes, of course?
HART: The last 25 were passed in from the boat deck.
SOLCITOR GENERAL: Your 25?
HART: Yes (Titanic Project, Brit. Inq., 1999: 9965-10000).
Contrast the above with the following testimony of Rule, responding to a question sounded throughout the inquiries: that of the paradoxical absence of third class women and children from the Boat Deck as certain of the last lifeboats, like Lifeboat 15, were ready to be launched.:
ATTORNEY GENERAL: It struck you as rather odd, did it not, that after the order that was given, 'Women and children in the boats,' that you should have so many men?
RULE: Well, they were pretty well all cleared off that deck.
ATTORNEY GENERAL: Did you think when the vessel left that there were no more women on board?
RULE: No.
ATTORNEY GENERAL: Well, you knew there were some women left?
RULE: Well, I should imagine so.
ATTORNEY GENERAL: But you knew that the order was that the women were to go into the boat first and this was the last boat?
RULE: Yes.
ATTORNEY GENERAL: Why did not you go to look for them?
RULE: Well, because there were other people looking for them.
ATTRONEY GENERAL: But not at the time the men were being passed into the boat?
RULE: Yes, they were shouting out round the decks (Titanic Project, Brit. Inq., 1999: 6575-6583).
.

Rather than loading in some 25 third class women into lifeboat 15 as it was being lowered, as Hart testified, Rule's testimony makes it plain that as the boat was about to be launched no women were to be found to put into what might well have been the last lifeboat at the rear of the Boat Deck to leave the ship.

In sum, Hart's account of his rescue of the second group of 28 passengers like his claim of rescuing the first group of 30, does not seem to have a real foundation.

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