James Bloomer

Mr James Bloomer was born in Belfast, Ireland on 12 November 1860.¹ Hailing from a Church of Ireland family, was the son of John Bloomer, a mason. 

He was married in Belfast on 11 April 1882 to Jane McDowell (b. circa 1862), a mill worker. They had five children, two surviving infancy. 

James, his wife and two daughters Eliza and Martha appear on the 1911 census as residents of 40 McCandless Street, Belfast and he was described as an able seaman. By 1912 they were residents of 34 McCandless Street where James would spend the rest of his life.

Bloomer’s ship prior to Titanic had been the Olympic. He joined Titanic at Belfast for the delivery trip to Southampton where he then disembarked.

Shortly after the Titanic disaster James and his wife suffered the loss of their younger daughter Martha to pneumonia in July 1912 at the age of 17. In September that year, James Bloomer was a signatory of the Ulster Covenant, a petition signed by nearly 500,000 citizens opposing Irish Home Rule. 

During WWI Bloomer served with the Royal Naval Reserves. Widowed in 1917, James Bloomer died on 12 September 1927 and was buried with his wife in Belfast’s City Cemetery (plot M2 64).