The Postcard
A postally unused Valentine's Sreries postcard bearing an image that is a glossy real photograph. The card has a divided back.
Bridlington
Bridlington is a coastal town on the Holderness Coast of the North Sea, situated in the East Riding of Yorkshire approximately 28 miles (45 km) north of Hull and 34 miles (55 km) east of York. The Gypsey Race river runs through the town and emerges into the North Sea in the town harbour.
In the 2011 Census the population was 35,369.
Bridlington is a minor sea fishing port with a working harbour, and is well known for its shellfish. It has a mix of small businesses across the manufacturing, retail and service sectors with its prime trade being tourism during the summer months.
The origins of the town are uncertain, but archaeological evidence shows habitation in the Bronze Age and Roman periods. The settlement at the Norman conquest was called Bretlinton, but has also gone by the names of Berlington, Brellington and Britlington, before settling on its modern name in the 19th century.
Bridlington in World War II
During the Second World War, Bridlington suffered many air-raids with a significant number of deaths and extensive bomb damage.
David Hockney
Artist David Hockney owned a house in Bridlington, at which an assistant drank a cleaning product and died in March 2013.
Wallace Hartley and The Titanic
There is a blue plaque in Bridlington for Wallace Hartley. He led an orchestra in the town in 1902, although he is particularly famous as leader of the band that played as the Titanic sank in April 1912.
Wallace Henry Hartley (2nd. June 1878 – 15th. April 1912) was an English violinist and bandleader on the Titanic during its maiden voyage.
He became famous for leading the eight-member band as the ship sank on the 15th. April 1912. He died at the age of 33, along with the rest of the band, when the ship went down.
-- Wallace Hartley - The Early Years
Wallace Hartley was born and raised in Colne, Lancashire. His father, Albion Hartley, was the choirmaster and Sunday school superintendent at Bethel Independent Methodist Chapel, on Burnley Road where the family attended services.
Albion introduced the hymn "Nearer, My God, to Thee" to the congregation.
Wallace studied at Colne's Methodist day school, sang in Bethel's choir, and learned to play the violin from a fellow congregation member.
After leaving school, Hartley started work with the Craven & Union Bank in Colne. When his family moved to Huddersfield, Hartley joined the Huddersfield Philharmonic Orchestra.
In 1903, Wallace left home to join the municipal orchestra in Bridlington, where he stayed for six years.
-- Wallace Hartley and the White Star Line
Wallace later moved to Dewsbury, West Yorkshire and in 1909, he joined the Cunard Line as a musician, serving on the ocean liners RMS Lucania, RMS Lusitania and RMS Mauretania.
Whilst serving on the Mauretania, the employment of Cunard musicians was transferred to the music agency C.W. & F.N. Black, which supplied musicians for Cunard and the White Star Line.
This transfer changed Hartley's onboard status, as he was no longer counted as a member of the crew, but rather as a passenger, albeit one accommodated in second-class accommodation at the agency's expense.
It later transpired that neither the shipping company nor the music agency had insured the musicians, with each claiming it was the other's responsibility.
In April 1912, Hartley was assigned to be the bandmaster for the White Star Line ship RMS Titanic.
Wallace was at first hesitant to leave his fiancée, Maria Robinson, to whom he had recently proposed, but Hartley decided that working on the maiden voyage of the Titanic would give him possible contacts for future work.
-- The Sinking of the Titanic
After the Titanic hit an iceberg on the night of the 14th. April 1912 and began to sink, Hartley and his fellow band members started playing music to help keep the passengers calm as the crew loaded the lifeboats.
Many of the survivors said that Hartley and the band continued to play until the very end. A newspaper at the time reported:
"The part played by the orchestra on board
the Titanic in her last dreadful moments will
rank among the noblest in the annals of
heroism at sea."
Though the final song played by the band is unknown, "Nearer, My God, to Thee" has gained popular acceptance.
Walter Lord's book A Night to Remember (1955) popularised wireless officer Harold Bride's account of hearing the song "Autumn".
Ellwand Moody, a musician on the Mauretania alongside Hartley, claimed that Hartley had said he would play either "Nearer, My God, to Thee" or "Our God, Our Help in Ages Past" if he were ever on a sinking ship.
-- After the Sinking
Hartley's body was recovered almost two weeks after the sinking. Several press reports confirmed that Wallace was found fully dressed with his music case strapped to his body.
His body was returned to Liverpool, where Hartley's father met the ship and brought his son's body back to his home town of Colne.
The funeral took place on the 18th. May 1912. One thousand people attended Hartley's funeral, while an estimated 30,000–40,000 lined the route of his funeral procession.
Hartley was laid to rest in the Keighley Road cemetery, Colne, where a 10 feet (3.0 m) high headstone, containing a carved violin at its base, was erected in his honour.
Frederick Cayley Robinson's 1912 oil painting The Outward Bound (see below) shows a youth in a boat watching as Titanic leaves Southampton. It was commissioned in memory of Hartley, and given to Leeds Art Gallery by the Leeds Professional Musicians. The painting was unveiled in the City Art Gallery by the Lord Mayor of Leeds on the 23rd. December 1912.
Additionally a memorial to Hartley, topped by his bust (see below), was erected in 1915 outside what was then the town library in Colne. This was later moved slightly to make way for a World War One memorial.
Hartley's large Victorian terraced house in West Park Street, Dewsbury bears a blue plaque.
In 2001, Hartley's name was still being used when naming new streets and housing in the town of Colne. In 2008, the pub chain J D Wetherspoon named a newly-opened pub, (the building having been the long-standing King's Head Hotel) in Colne after the bandleader.
-- Memorials to the Band
A memorial to the Titanic musicians as a whole was erected in Broken Hill, in New South Wales. The people of Broken Hill were so moved by the bravery of the ship's bandsmen that they launched a public appeal in order to create a memorial to them.
The memorial, in the shape of a broken pillar, was unveiled in December 1913.
The City of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia, has an Edwardian bandstand to commemorate the musicians lost. It was erected by the Ballarat Council with funds raised by the Victorian Band Association, and citizens of the area.
The Titanic Memorial bandstand, was unveiled on the 22nd. October 1915. Every year on the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, a band plays "Nearer, My God, To Thee", in the bandstand.
-- Wallace Hartley's Violin
In March 2013, after two years of in-depth trace analysis by The Forensic Science Service on behalf of auctioneers Henry Aldridge & Son, and seven years of evidence-gathering by the Wiltshire-based auction house, it was announced that a violin found in a British man's attic inside a leather case with the initials "W. H. H." was the instrument used by Hartley during the ship's last moments.
The identification was helped by an engraving on the German-made violin which his fiancée (Maria Robinson) had placed on the instrument in 1910 which read:
'For Wallace on the occasion of
our engagement from Maria.'
Further tests by a silver expert from the Gemmological Association of Great Britain confirmed that the plate on the base of the violin was original, and that the metal engraving done on behalf of Maria Robinson was contemporary with those made in 1910.
A CT scan enabled experts to view 3D images of the inside of the violin. The fine detail of the scan meant that experts could examine the construction, interior and the glue holding the instrument together showing signs of possible restoration.
While researching the origins of the violin, the auctioneers and Christian Tennyson-Ekeberg, biographer of Wallace Hartley and author of Nearer, Our God, to Thee: The Biography of the Titanic Bandmaster, discovered the transcript of a telegram sent to the Provincial Secretary of Nova Scotia, Canada, dated 19th. July 1912 in the diary of Hartley's grieving fiancée in which she stated:
"I would be most grateful if you could
convey my heartfelt thanks to all who
have made possible the return of my
late fiancé's violin."
After Maria Robinson's death in 1939, her sister gave the violin to the Bridlington Salvation Army and told its leader, a Major Renwick, about the instrument's association with the Titanic.
The violin was later passed on to a violin teacher, who gave it to the current owner's mother. Henry Aldridge & Sons stated:
"It's been in the same family
for over 70 years."
Craig Sopin, the owner of one of the world's largest collections of Titanic memorabilia, a leading Titanic expert, and a general skeptic of Titanic claims, stated that:
"The violin is Hartley's and
not a fraud."
The Hartley violin was exhibited in Belfast at the shipyard where the RMS Titanic was built, and in the United States at Titanic Branson and Titanic Pigeon Forge museums.
It was sold by auction house Henry Aldridge & Son in Devizes, Wiltshire, on the 19th. October 2013 for £900,000 ($1.7 million).
The violin now resides at Titanic Belfast Museum and is open to public viewing. It has two large cracks, and is no longer playable.
After seeing the violin auctioned at Aldridges, British folk singer/songwriter Reg Meuross was inspired to write a song about the story of the violin, "The Band Played Sweet Marie", that was released on his album England Green and England Grey in 2014.
The story of Wallace Hartley and his violin is also the inspiration behind the song "Titanically" written by Canadian singer/songwriter Heather Rankin and David Tyson, with a music video directed by American-Canadian filmmaker Thom Fitzgerald.
The music video was released the 2nd. June 2017, to honour Hartley's birthday.
