Alfred Samuel Allsop

  • Thread starter David Parkinson
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David Parkinson

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I am hitting some confusion about the true rank of my great uncle, Alfred Allsop. Most lists have him down as 'junior Electrician.' The families documents have him as '2nd Electrician', whilst the Manchester Evening News April 14th 1912 has him as 'Chief Electrician.'
He had worked for White Star in the electrical capacity for a number of years, and had designed the later famous 'Allsop Electric Lifeboat Crane', alas no good to him! That leads me to suspect that he was not, at 34, a junior. Can anyone throw light on this??

Dave.
 
Hallo, David. There were 6 electrical engineers in Titanic's crew. The Chief Electrician was Peter Sloan. Directly under the Chief (ie his 'junior') was Alfred Allsop as 2nd Electrician. The other 4 were Assistant Electricians. The level of responsibility may be gauged by the pay scales - The Chief would have received £12 for the voyage, the 2nd £11, and the four asistants £8 each. Alfred's pay was higher than that of the Chief Surgeon or of any of the deck crew below the rank of 2nd Officer.

Among the engineers in general the ranking system can be confusing, and 'juniors' were often quite senior! The Junior Assistant 2nd Engineer, for instance, was several ranks senior to the Senior 5th Engineer.
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Cheers Bob, that clears that up!! Gone forever the family arguments. It just goes to show how everybody can be correct.
I belive that Alfreds post was in the main switchroom. That would be in the stern of the ship, I am told, over the engines. Do you know if that part of what little remains of the stern section is intact, & has it been 'explored'??? It would be nice to think it was still complete.
 
The switchboard was mounted on a raised gallery at the forward end of the generator room, which was aft of the turbine engine room and very deep in the hull. Not much chance of exploration in that area, I'm afraid, but there were detailed plans of the arrangement and a photo of the switchboard (before installation) in The Shipbuilder special issue on the Olympic Class liners. See here:

http://www.copperas.com/titanic/dynamo.htm
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An interesting point, Dave, is that the body of Herbert Jupe, one of the four Assistant Electricians, was later recovered from the sea. That means he was on deck wearing a lifebelt when the ship went down, and the electricians did not all die at their posts in the bowels of the ship as is commonly portrayed. Also the description of Jupe's body gives an idea of how these men were dressed - uniform jacket over a brown boiler suit.
 
My Grandfather often mentioned Herbert Jupe, whome he had met on several occasions. It is just possible that Herbert was on deck to work the electric cranes that must have been used to launch the two collapsible boats. My Grandfather & Alfred were boyhood friends, & lived near to each other in Manchester. Alfred had secured a placement for him as a cabin attendant on the Titanic, but he missed the boat-train connection from Manchester owing to fog....otherwise this post may not have been written!! His name was George Lionel Payne. I'm not sure of the validity of that story, but the old man often repeated it until his death aged 91 in 1984.
Thanks for the link, Bob, just added it to my files. I have a full size picture of Alfred, in uniform. If you would like a copy let me know an 'e' address I can use.
 
Thanks, Dave, I'd very much like to have a scan of the photo and to talk more about Alfred. Your own profile page doesn't accept private messages, but mine does (click on my name in the left-hand column on this page). If you make first contact that way we can then switch to normal email which can handle attachments.
 
[Moderator's Note: Photo which also appears in Ms. DuRaine's "Introduce Yourself" message deleted. MAB]

I believe Alfred Allsop was my grandmother's cousin. I heard about him as I was growing up and would like to find any relatives.

What a great site! I am really enjoying it.
 
The above thread is slightly old and from now onwards this is going to be quite a common occurrence coming from my own corner.


I wonder if David Parkinson is prepared to discuss a few other matters of importance as I have a number of burning questions to ask about Samuel and Hilda.

I will be writing privately over the weekend but in case there's a lapse on my part, I may need a kind off alarm clock call as a reminder.
 
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