Britain marked the centenary of the sinking of the RMS Titanic with the unveiling of a plaque in Belfast, featuring the names of all the 1,517 killed in the disaster. A memorial service for the tragedy was held at exact spot where the Titanic sank as a cruise ship, MS Balmoral, from Britain with mostly descendants of those killed retraced the ill-fated ship’s route.
A service will also be held at Liverpool Cathedral later on Sunday to pray for the victims of the disaster. Liverpool was the headquarters of the White Star Line, which owned the ship. Southampton, from where Titanic was launched, held a service at St. Mary’s Church where the Bishop of Southampton, the Right Reverend Jonathan Frost, gave a blessing.
The Titanic sank on its maiden voyage between Southampton in England and New York City after it struck an iceberg on the night of April 14, 1912, at 11.40 pm by ship’s time. It was owned by White Star Line Shipping Company and was built at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast.
The ship sank after colliding with an iceberg in North Atlantic Ocean, 375 miles southeast of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, leading to the deaths of 1,517 people. Only 711 people of the total 2,228 people on board the ship survived the tragedy. The ship broke into two and sank in three hours. In Belfast too, a service was held at the city hall after the plaques, with the names of those who died in alphabetical order, was unveiled in the Titanic Memorial Garden. Jack Martin, a 12-year-old great, great nephew of the ship’s doctor, Dr John Edward Simpson, was among those who helped unveil bronze plaques.
A service was held to commemorate Titanic’s chief telegraphic officer, Jack Phillips, who died in the disaster. A memorial to Philips was reopened in Godalming, Surrey, and a service was held in his memory on Sunday. In Staffordshire city of Stoke-on-Trent, a plaque was unveiled in the street where Captain Edward Smith was born. In Wales, a slate plaque honouring Titanic’s fifth officer Harold Lowe, who commanded the only lifeboat to look for survivors and saved four from freezing waters, was unveiled at his home town harbour of Barmouth.