Encyclopedia Titanica

John Gordon

Titanic Trimmer

Mr John Gordon (Trimmer) was born in Edinburgh, Midlothian, Scotland around 1882. Further details about his early life are not known. 

In 1906 he was married to a lady named Lily May (b. circa 1884) in Hartley Wintney, Hampshire. She was a native of Crondall, Hampshire and was the daughter of Walter May, a farmer. 

What happened between the time of their marriage and 1911 is not known, for when Lily appeared on the 1911 census she was listed as the wife of Joseph John Englefield (b. 1882), a Basingstoke-born farm worker. They lived at White Lane Cottage in Albury, Guildford, Surrey and living with them was their daughter Alice Beatrice who had been born in Surrey on 1 January 1909(1). Lily and Englefield were not however married at that point, as the census suggests, but living as a common-law couple. 

John Gordon also appeared on the 1911 census; he was lodging at 14 Bond Street, Northam, Southampton (a Salvation Army hostel) and described as a five years-married general labourer aged 29. 

Gordon was taken on as a substitute for a crewman that did not sail with the ship. When he signed on to the Titanic on 10 April 1912 he gave his local address as the Sailors' Home in Southampton. His previous ship had been the Oceanic and as a trimmer he received monthly wages of £5, 10s.

John Gordon died in the sinking and his body, if recovered, was never identified.

His "widow" Lily was free to remarry and did so two years later to Joseph Englefield. Together they had several more children, one of whom, a baby girl, arriving less than a year after the sinking but died shortly after. The family resettled in Hartley Wintney where Lily died in 1923 aged 39. Her widower Joseph died 10 years later in Andover. 

Their daughter Alice was married in Hampshire in 1929 to Reginald Montague Frank Ellery (1901-1979), a carter, and they raised a family.  She died in Hampshire in 1985.

Notes

  1. Birth registered as Alice Beatrice Englefield 

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Titanic Crew Summary

Name: Mr John Gordon
Age: 30 years (Male)
Nationality: Scottish
Marital Status: Married
Last Residence: at Sailors' Home Southampton, Hampshire, England
Occupation: Trimmer
Last Ship: Oceanic
Embarked: Southampton on Wednesday 10th April 1912
Died in the Titanic disaster (15th April 1912)
Body Not Identified

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