Joseph Abraham Hyman : Titanic Survivor

Joseph Abraham Hyman was born in Kaunas, Lithuania, in the Russian Empire on 15 February 1878.¹ Born into a family of Polish Jews, he was the son of Barnett Hyman (b. circa 1854), a grocer and the former Fannie Rosengrass (b. circa 1854), both natives of Warsaw. 

His known siblings were: Lipman (b. circa 1877), Dorah (b. circa 1885), Harry (b. 1889), Samuel (b. 1891), Solomon (b. 1893) and Sarah (b. 1897). 

The Hyman family arrived in England sometime prior to 1889, settling into Manchester's thriving Jewish community where Barnett Hyman initially worked as a travelling jewellery salesman before operating his own Kosher grocery. In 1891 and 1901, the family lived in the Red Bank district of Manchester. 

Hyman was married in 1902 to Esther Levy (b. 1880), a native of Manchester also born to Polish-Jewish migrants. The young couple moved to Glasgow and began their family, eventually welcoming seven children: Julius (b. 1902), Annie (b. 1904), Lilian (b. 1906), Morris (b. 1907), Eva (b. 1909), Jonas (b. 1913) and Rachel (b. 1915). 

The family lived for several years in the Gorbals before relocating to Cheetham Hill, Manchester, sometime prior to 1909 and by 1911, was living at 45 Stocks Street, Cheetham, and Hyman was then described as a shopkeeper.

Seeking new employment opportunities, Hyman decided to migrate to the USA and boarded the Titanic in Southampton as a third-class passenger (ticket number 3470, which cost £7, 17s, 9d) on 10 April 1912, and he was travelling alone to Springfield, Massachusetts where he had a brother, Harry. He was then described as a picture frame maker.

Interviewed in 1953, Hyman stated that he shared a cabin with a watchmaker from Strangeways, Manchester (David Livshin). Asleep at the time of the collision, he was stirred awake by the impact but felt no immediate danger. What he noticed within minutes, however, was an atypical silence, strange in that it was then he realised that the engines appeared to have stopped alongside their accompanying vibration. He rose from his bunk and dressed warmly, right down to a heavy overcoat into which he secreted a flask of whiskey. His bunkmate David Livshin, he stated, refused to leave the warmth and security of their cabin, so Hyman pressed out into the open decks by himself, where he wandered around for over an hour. 

In the 1953 interview, Hyman states that he was beckoned into a lifeboat (number 14) by an officer but also states that Bruce Ismay was amongst the boat’s occupants (collapsible C). He also claimed to be in a lifeboat with a woman who attributed her salvation to her lucky pig (Edith Rosenbaum), placing him in lifeboat 11. Some researchers place him in one of the other aft starboard boats, possibly boat 13. 

"...The forward deck was jammed with the people, all of them pushing and clawing and fighting, and so I walked forward and stepped over the end of the boat that was being got ready and sat down,” he told The New York Times. “Nobody disturbed me, and then a line of men gathered along the side and only opened when a woman or a child came forward. When a man tried to get through, he would be pushed back...”

Reaching America aboard Carpathia, Hyman was met by his brother and granted several interviews to local newspapers. His wife refused to cross the Atlantic to join him, and he also had reservations about crossing again. His time spent in New York, however, with its diverse ethnicities and religions and their associated stores, inspired Abraham to pursue his own enterprise back in England. He eventually overcame his fear of travelling on the ocean and returned to England. 

When Hyman returned to Manchester, he opened his own Kosher deli and grocery store, J. A. Hyman Ltd, on Waterloo Road. Locals referred to him as the "Titanic Man", and the store became known as Titanics and remained in business until 2016.

Hyman and his wife welcomed two children after his return from New York, Jonas (intentionally named after the Old Testament figure saved from a shipwreck) and Rachel, and the family settled at 230 Waterloo Road, Cheetham, and it was whilst living there that Abraham was widowed when his wife Esther died on 14 September 1927 aged 46.

He was remarried on 29 June 1929 in New Kahal Chassidim Synagogue to widow Esther Libbert, née Rosengrass (b. 1886), of 385 Waterloo Road, Cheetham. Esther was a native of Cheetham and was first married in 1909 to Abraham Libbert (1886-1921), a jeweller with whom she had one son and one daughter, Jack and Fanny.

Abraham and his second wife were living in Southport, Lancashire, when he was again widowed on 9 June 1951; he resettled in Manchester at 25 Crumpsall Lane. Two years later, in 1953, he was a special guest at a screening of the Fox movie Titanic but was profoundly nervous at the prospect of viewing the film.

Joseph Abraham Hyman died aged 78 on 6 March 1956 in The Victoria Memorial Jewish Hospital in Manchester. He is buried in Blackley Jewish Cemetery (section G, plot 172) under an impressive Hebrew-adorned headstone.

His Nickname—Mr. Titanic
Survivor of the Titanic disaster, Mr Joseph, Abraham, Hardiman, of Crumpsall Lane, Crumpsall, Manchester, has died in the Jewish hospital, aged 76.

Feeling homesick, he returned from the US in 1913 to start a delicatessen business, and people in the Cheetham Hill area, nicknamed him “Mr Titanic.”

He leaves three sons, and three daughters. — Manchester Evening News, 7 March 1956