The Titanic and the Curse of the Mummy!

W.T. Stead who died on the Titanic, and who thus one hundred years ago today, along with hundreds of other fellow passengers and crew, would have been unknowingly living out his last day of life a century ago, had foreseen himself drowning, link here:

Speaking against the society in admitting evidence of communications from the dead, Stead drew, before the members of the Cosmos Club in 1909, a graphic, imaginary picture of himself, shipwrecked and drowning in the sea and calling frantically for help. He imagined that instead of throwing him a rope the rescuers would shout back: "Who are you? What is your name? 'I am Stead! W. T. Stead! I am drowning here in the sea. Throw me the rope. Be quick!' But instead of throwing me the rope they continue to shout back: 'How do we know you are Stead? Where were you born? Tell us the name of your grandmother.' "

Stead had also written on the dangers of icebergs and the inadequacy of the number of lifeboat places on transatlantic liners, link here:

For the 1893 Christmas issue of Review of Reviews, Stead wrote a story entitled "From the Old World to the New," a fiction concerning the dangers of icebergs in the Atlantic Ocean. The story is set on a ship named the Majestic with Captain Smith as commander. Reportedly, this is the same Captain Smith who 21 years later goes down with the Titanic. The narrative pictures the sinking of the liner and depicts the Atlantic Ocean as a grave.

Stead's involvement with the highest politics of his age has already been discussed on this blog during the past week, whether or not it was his association with Rhodes,  and disputations over world governance and the founding forces behind Round Table, read here, that put him on board the fated ship, we, the general public, will probably never know.

Another theory exists which concerns Stead's links to spritualism and takes us into the realms of Egyptology and the possibly cursed relics of Mummies, however, which is the topic for this posting on the eve of the fateful wreck.

An idea of the importance of Ancient Egypt in the Victorian era is best illustrated for me by the fact that the famed Entente Cordiale between Britain and France initially concerned itself mostly with the division of power in North Africa, with much emphasis on responsibility for Egyptian antiquities, see here. (Note the importance attached to the position of a French savant in the very first article!)

There is, of course, a mass of information available on the internet about Stead and his supposed telling of the tale of the Mummy's curse, at dinner on the last evening of the Titanic's maiden voyage, one such is here, another here.

I will leave others to surf and draw their own conclusions, while quoting this small but telling passage taken from one of his last letters, which seems strangely relevant to our world of today, from here:

"The general feeling of unrest that is surging over the world just now is profoundly disquieting some minds."

W.T. Stead and the Titanic

Much information is available on W.T. Stead from the Stead Resource Site, linked here and, of course, from Wikipedia. Regular readers of this blog and its forerunner will know that I ascribe much responsibility for the ideas behind the present EU to this man; who first wrote of Europa extolling the virtues of German domination of Europe in "Europa, The United States of Europe" in 1899, see here.

Stead perished on the Titanic in 1912, one hundred years ago next weekend, and thus never lived to see the horrors unleashed by German imperialism in the First World War, unlike his associates, such as, Rudyard Kipling and Lord Baden Powell.

Darlington, famed as the first railhead town, formed the backdrop to Stead's rise to prominence. As editor of the Northern Echo, he had a considerable influence over Gladstone's latter political success and it was this early start that subsequently was associated with his deemed fatherhood of the New Journalism. His Assistant Editor, Mark Fooks, previously editor of the local Richmond Yorks newspaper, (a position itself of considerable importance as hometown to the huge Catterick army base) and Stead's assistant at the Northern Echo, wrote on that as follows:

Until the advent of the Eastern Question Mr. Stead had not achieved more than a local reputation in connexion (sic) with the Northern Echo. The intensity of his political convictions, as shown by the fervour of his writings, had been previously manifest to Liberal political circles in Durham and Yorkshire and adjacent counties. The advent of the struggle between Russia and Turkey…(in 1876 blog editor's note) first brought Mr. Stead into recognition amongst the leading statesmen of the Liberal party.(Quoted in John Kensit, The Life of Mr. W.T. Stead: Editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, 2nd edn and available online in pdf from W.T. Stead and the New Journalism by Owen Mulpetre 2010)

(See also ISBN 978033360216& Gladstone by Roy Jenkins 1995 page 403).

Mark Fooks is considered by Chris Lloyd, author of Attacking the Devil, the story of the Northern Echo (ISBN 1899432140  published 1999) to have been a friend as well as associate editor to William Stead, and is in places attributed as having introduced Stead to spiritualism, while together in Darlington, something that I, even as the greatly influenced grandson of Fooks' sole grandson, cannot either confirm or deny.

William Thomas Stead, left the North East and as the detailed resources linked at the beginning of this posting reveal in great detail, became a hugely influential figure in late Victorian and Edwardian British public life. The legacy of that influence (see here) is almost certainly still being felt to this day, as will be further explored on this blog while the week of the centenary of the Titanic's sinking slowly slips by!

The sinking of the RMS Titanic - some background.

One hundred years ago today the Titanic left Southampton on her maiden voyage, bound for Cherbourg where she arrived at 6:35 pm. Into what troubled European waters did she thus set forth?

The Pax Britannica which had allowed their Lordships at the Admiralty to rule practically supreme for almost one hundred years, whilst maintaining something almost akin to world peace, was clearly coming to a close.

To counter the threat of German ambitions in its dreadnought battleship building programme four super-dreadnought Orion class battleships had been ordered in the 1909 Liberal Party's so-called "people's budget".The "Entente Cordiale" with England's long-term enemy France had been agreed and Kaiser Wilhelm II had made his intentions clear with a failed invasion attempt aimed at The Wash, the Kruger telegram on the Jameson raid and the Daily Telegraph affair of 1908. and the emergence
While the British Empire appeared to be still near its peak, centres of political power were shifting, eg with the emergence of Milner's Kindergarten. The essentially German British Royal Family were then also approaching the difficulties which would inevitably come to a head at the outbreak of The Great War in 1914.

The Royal Navy still controlled the seas, the British Army garrisoned and maintained order across the Empire, the Colonial Office administered its affairs and the Government led the country whilst still then under proper parliamentary control, other forces, however, were also at work. Although Cecil Rhodes had died ten years before the departure of the Titanic, his contradictory attitudes towards Germany and his own legacy to Britain's policies in Africa had but barely begun to play out. The presence of W.T. Stead (dubbed by Matthew Arnold as the father of modern journalism) and first trustee of the Rhodes estate on board the Titanic, must also be considered as significant and will be explored in my next posting on the sinking of this significant and prestigious vessel.

Footnote: Interestingly the influence of All Souls Oxford in considering British Foreign policy continues to this very day, can be seen in this morning's post to John Redwood's Diary, where to add strength and perhaps authority, to an article on the Euro, he describes himself as follows: "Distinguished fellow of All Souls College Oxford" see here.

My comment to the Euractiv Titanic article.

I submitted this comment to EurActiv at the foot of their Titanic article, linked here, with some extra editing and a link to the Europa passage by the father of modern journalism (Murdoch employees take not) W.T. Stead.

WT Stead in Europa 1899 wrote - "The Federation of Europe at the present moment is like an embryo in the later stages of gestation. It is not yet ready to be born. But it has quickened with conscious life, and already the Continent feels the approaching travail.

It has been a slow process. The great births of Time need great preparations. Under the foundations of the Cathedral of St. Isaac at St. Petersburg a whole forest of timber was sunk in piles before a basis strong enough for the mighty dome could be secured. The Federation of Europe is a temple far vaster than any pile of masonry put together by the hands of man. In the morass of the past its foundations have been reared, not upon the spoils of the forest, but upon generation of living men who have gone down into the void from red battlefield and pest-smitten camp and leaguered city in order that upon their bones the Destinies might lay the first courses of the new State. Carlyle's famous illustration of the Russian regiment at the siege of Zeidnitz, which was deliberately marched into the fosse in order that those followed after might march to victory over a pavement of human heads, represents only too faithfully the material on which these great world fabrics are reared."

We must view the present EU as a necessary learning experience and sacrifice it in pursuit of something more truly worthwhile. Only by a completely fresh start can there be any hope for Europe and the values of the West, the original concept of which the present construct was intended to promote.