Downend’s Titanic hero
MOST people probably know the story of the band on the deck of the sinking Titanic, playing on as the ship went down.
Not so many know the connection with Downend.
Rev Robert Bateman was born in Staple Hill, and lived for a time in Oldbury Court Road. His parents were from Mangotsfield.
He was a stonemason by trade, his father a leather worker.
He married Emily Hall, from London, and emigrated to Canada, then moved to the USA, with a growing family – six children in all.
Bateman was an evangelical minister, of the fire and brimstone variety; it isn’t clear whether he was Methodist or Baptist.
While in the USA he was heavily involved in setting up missions in the rougher parts of several towns, notably Knoxville and Jacksonville, Florida, where he finally settled, and was an effective helper of the poor and dispossessed.
Bateman is thought to have continued as a stonemason, but it seems he may latterly have had some wealthy supporters.
He travelled back to Bristol with his sister-in-law, Ada Ball, to study the Mueller orphanage system, and to arrange for a headstone for his mother Esther’s grave in Anglican Christ Church, Downend. She had died many years earlier, in 1891.
While in Bristol, Bateman also preached at evangelical centres. He seems to have been something of a local celebrity, as when he left to return to the USA, 200 people paraded him to Staple Hill station.
On returning on the ill-fated Titanic, it is said Bateman was asked to conduct the ship’s band.
When the ship hit the iceberg, he escorted his sister-in-law to one of the last boats, gave her his Bible and tie, and stayed on the ship, probably to lead those still on deck in prayer.
He is thought to have asked the band to play his favourite hymn, ‘Nearer my God to Thee’, which survivors in the boats, including Ada, heard.
Bateman’s Bible is still held in the Kellogg Titanic Museum in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.
Apparently, in a postcard to a nephew before he set sail, he wrote: “If this ship goes to the bottom I shall not be there, I shall be up yonder.”
Bateman’s body was recovered from the sea a few days later. He seems to have also been an active Freemason, as masons in Jacksonville were reported as clearing a large mortgage on the family home, and he had a gold Masonic pin on him.
Bateman was buried in Jacksonville, where there is both a tomb and a memorial stone.
His widow stayed in Baltimore with her child, Grace, who lived to 95, dying in 1990.
His father, Charles, was reported to have emigrated to Baltimore and died there. This last claim is inaccurate, as both parents are definitely buried in Christ Church Downend.
The modest slab gravestone is in section 19, plot 32, close to the alley next to the churchyard, behind a prominent tall headstone, and below a large holly tree. It holds both parents.
Thanks to Jenny Alcock of CHAP, who cleaned the barely-legible grave. It looks as if two hands did the inscription: the top line is Gothic, maybe a pre-carved standard line.
Perhaps Bateman, as a stonemason, carved the rest himself – it would seem in character.
There might be evidence in church records.
Robert Bateman was a fascinating character, clearly quite charismatic and inspirational.
Downend has had a good share of interesting characters, but he and his parents deserve to be better-known locally.
There are two truly bizarre American Titanic museums with half-replicas of the ship – one in Tennessee and the other in Branson, Missouri in the Ozark mountains, both hundreds of miles from the sea!
For more on Bateman’s life visit the Encyclopredia Titanica at tinyurl.com/2zv5j7dj or Bristol History at tinyurl.com/mvwr4y5p.
A booklet of his life and the US religious context has been published: ‘Robert Bateman – The Minister that inspired the Titanic’, by Stephen Flick.
Downend Community History and Arts Project (CHAP) is a not-for-profit voluntary organisation that aims to create a coherent identity for Downend and Emersons Green, built around interesting or significant places, people and events from the past.
For more information visit www.downendchap.org, email big.gin@yahoo.com or write to CHAP, 49 Overnhill Road, Downend, Bristol, BS16 5DS.
Jonathan Seagrave