Mr Edward Pomeroy Colley

Mr Edward Pomery Colley was born into a well-to-do family in County Kildare, Ireland, 15 April 1875.

He was a civil engineer who shared a mansion in Dublin with his older brother, George, who was a magistrate. During the Klondike Gold Rush he opened a mining brokerage firm in Vancouver, and successfully speculated in mining stocks;. Mr Colley had business interests on both sides of the Atlanic and frequently travelled between Dublin and a home on Vancouver Island in Victoria's affluent English Bay neighbourhood. He had been in Ireland for Christmas, 1911, and was returning to Canada aboard the Titanic. He was about to go to work as a consultant to the prominent British Columbia industrialist James Dunsmuir.

He prepaid £19 11s 9d for first class ticket No: 17387, and then had to pay a final of £6 for his contract ticket number 5727. Presumably, because of season-changing (1). He boarded the Titanic at Southampton and occupied cabin E-58.

On board he and four other men attached themselves to American socialite Mrs Churchill Candee and the group became known as her "coterie." Little is known about Colley, but one passenger recalls he was "a roly poly Irishman who laughed a lot but said little." On the night of the sinking he attended a concert in the first class reception area on D-Deck, and retired to his cabin just after 11 p.m.

He died in the wreck on the morning of his 37th birthday. A month later, on May 25, 1912, the Tipperary Star reported that Colley's brother "is about to proceed to British Columbia to look after the estates of Major Edward Pomery Colley who was one of the heroes who sacrificed his life for others in the terrible Titanic disaster...when the sad news that he had paid the penalty of his heroism with the foundering of the monster liner was made known, all creeds and classes in Tipperary and the surrounding district tendered their sympathetic condolences to a popular gentleman in a most trying time."

Notes
1. One source (AH) suggests he paid £28 10 shillings for a second class cabin, but on board paid another £6 to be upgraded to First Class.

References and Sources

Alan Hustak (1999) Titanic: The Canadian Story. Véhicule Press. ISBN 1 55065 113 7