A less well known Potteries born sailor who also perished in the Titanic disaster was senior fourth engineer Leonard Hodgkinson. At the time of his death he was 46 years old, and like Smith he had spent most of his adult life at sea, albeit in a far different environment to that of his much more famous shipmate. As a member of the ship’s engineering staff, his working life was one spent for the most part in noisy, hot engine rooms, with little view of sea or sky save when he was off duty.
Leonard was born at 20 North Street, Stoke-upon-Trent, on 20th February 1866, the second son and fifth child of potter’s presser John Hodgkinson and his wife Caroline nee Steele. (1) Educated at St Thomas’ School, Stoke, before the age of 15, Leonard was apprenticed as an engine fitter with Messrs Hartley, Arnoux and Fanning, in Stoke. (2) By this time, the 1881 census reveals that the Hodgkinson family had moved a short distance from their former home and now lived at 5 Knowl Street, Stoke.
His apprenticeship done, Leonard left the Potteries sometime in the 1880’s and took up a positon with Messrs Lairds of Birkenhead (later of Cammell Lairds fame). During this time he probably lodged with his elder sister Rose, her husband Henry Mulligan and their children, who had settled in Liverpool sometime after their marriage in 1877. It was in Liverpool that Leonard met his wife-to-be, Sarah Clarke. The couple were married in West Derby, Liverpool on 14th February 1891 and were lodging with Henry and Rose Mulligan at 10 Helena Street, Walton on the Hill, Liverpool when the census was taken on the night of 5th-6th April.(3)
The census reveals that Leonard was now a seagoing marine engineer. He served for five years with the Beaver Line, whose ships sailed from Liverpool to Quebec and Montreal. In 1894, though, the Beaver Line went into liquidation and it may have been at this point that Leonard left and joined Rankin, Gilmour and Co., Ltd, which firm he also served with for five years, earning his first class certificate in the process. (4) He may have served with the Saint Line of ships which were owned by Rankin and Co., most of which carried the ‘Saint -’ title. Leonard’s final position with the company was as chief engineer aboard a ship with just such a title, the SaintJerome.
Despite having achieved this exhaulted position, for whatever reason sometime prior to 1901, Leonard resigned and set himself up in business ashore as a mechanical engineer, living at 40 Oakfield Road, Walton on the Hill, Liverpool. The 1901 census reveals that he and Sarah now had three children, Marion born in 1893, Caroline born in 1895 and Leonard Stanley born in 1898.
In May 1905, though, Leonard returned to the sea, joining the White Star Line, serving first as assistant engineer on the Celtic, later earning promotion to fourth and then third engineer. He does not appear in the 1911 census, so may well have been at sea when it was taken on the night of 2nd-3rd April. Sarah and the children, though, were at their home at 7 Thurnham Street, Anfield, Liverpool. The eldest girl, Marion, now 17, worked as a shop assistant; Caroline, 15, was an ‘apprentice’; while Leonard Stanley, 12, was still at school.
According to family lore, Leonard Hodgkinson was keen to serve on as many vessels as possible before retirement, so was doubtless pleased after what appears to have been a six year stint aboard the Celtic, to be transferred over to the glamourous new Olympic when that ship came on-line in June 1911. Here he was briefly bumped back down to assistant engineer, but soon earned promotion to fourth engineer once again. Perhaps more troublesome for him and his family was the fact that the Olympic was to sail from Southampton. There is no indication that the whole Hodgkinson family moved to Southampton at this time, though it is a possibility, but if not, then Leonard had to put up at lodgings in between journeys and perhaps only got to see his family on a few occasions when he could make the journey back to Liverpool.
It was in early 1912, that Leonard travelled to Belfast where he joined the staff under Chief Engineer Joseph Bell, who were involved in getting the Olympic’s younger sister Titanic up and running. On 2nd April he was signed onto the ship’s books for the delivery trip from Belfast to Southampton and on 6th April he was signed on once again in Southampton, now as senior fourth engineer, giving his address as 67 Arthur Road, Shirley, Southampton.
As senior fourth engineer, Leonard Hodgkinson was the highest ranking of the five fourth engineers aboard the Titanic, one of whom was a specialist in charge of the ship’s refridgeration equipment. Whilst at sea their duties involved checking that the adjustments and routine maintainance of the ship’s machinery was carried out. They dealt with any minor problems as they arose, answered any orders rung down via the ship’s telegraphs and ensured that everything ran as smoothly as possible. As officers it was also their duty to supervise the firemen, trimmers and greasers who worked with them down in the bowels of the ship.
How Leonard’s days passed aboard the Titanic prior to its fateful collision is unknown, as too are his deeds on the night in question, as no accounts seem to exist noting him. If the story is to be believed, though, his fate and that of the 1500 other people who perished on the Titanic was foreseen by one of his relatives back in the Potteries, none of whom had any idea that Leonard was aboard the Titanic. According to the story she later told, two days before the disaster, Leonard’s 14 year old neice, Rose May Timmis, the daughter of Leonard’s elder sister Agnes, was sleeping in the same bed as her grandmother Caroline Hodgkinson (Leonard’s mother) when she had a nightmare. Rose dreamt that she was standing by a road in Trentham Park looking out over the lake, when a large ship steamed into sight. Suddenly the ship went down at one end and she could hear terrible screams. Rose herself woke up with a yell that frightened her grandmother awake. When the frightened girl related her dream her grandmother snapped, “No more suppers for you, lady; dreams are a pack of daft.”
After a while, Rose drifted back to sleep once more, only to find herself dreaming the same terrible scene and as before when she heard the people screaming she did the same. She recalled that her grandmother was furious with her this time. (5)
A few days later, though, the news of the terrible disaster broke and the family learnt that Leonard had been aboard the Titanic and that he and the other 34 engineering officers aboard had perished with the ship. Though several bodies from the engineering department were recovered in the following weeks, Leonard’s was not one of them.
Leonard left an estate of £116, 10s, 10d to his widow. This small amount was added to over the next couple of years as in the wake of the disaster the next of kin of the dead crew members received a little money by way of compensation for their loss. In July 1912, White Star awarded Leonard's dependants the £14 wages he was owed plus £300 for his loss. Nearly a year later the family were listed as 'class B dependants' by the Mansion House Titanic Relief Fund and received an annual stipend to help them. Barely a year had passed, however, than Leonard's daughter Marion reported to the fund committee that her mother Sarah, Leonard's widow, had died on 25th January 1914. The Relief Fund continued with the payments in full until 31st March that year. This changed to 10s a week for the next year before being reconsidered. (6)
Though Leonard’s body was never found, he is remembered in several memorials, most notably on the Southampton Engineers Memorial, East Park (shown right); the Titanic and Engineers memorial, Liverpool; the Glasgow Institute of Marine Engineers memorial; the Institute of Marine Engineers memorial, London. There is also a brass memorial plaque in the church of St. Faithful, in Crosby, Liverpool, dedicated to the memory of the Chief Engineer and his Engine Room staff.(7)
(1) John Hodgkinson married Caroline Steele on 21st February 1853 at Penkhull, Staffs.
(2) This company’s main line of business was in the manufacture of machinery for the pottery and brickmaking industries, but they also undertook some millwrighting and general engineering work. Locomotive building - numbering about 21 trains - was carried out on behalf of Kerr Stuart and Co., the company which eventually took them over in 1892. In the 1920' Kerr Stuart and Co. had another apprentice on their books, a young man named Reginald Joseph Mitchell, who later went on to design a series of prize-winning seaplanes and, most famously, the Spitfire fighter plane.
(3) Like Leonard and his in laws all of whom were from Stoke, Sarah Clarke had moved to Liverpool, hailing originally from Birmingham.
5) Quoted in Ian Stevenson's paper 'Seven More Paranormal Experiences Associated with the Sinking of the Titanic' from Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 59 (July, 1965) pp. 211-225. See also the following discussion: http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/discus/messages/5914/66530.html?1117498388 . George Behe notes in the discussion that the story recorded by Stevenson was written by a 'Mrs Charles Hughes' and 'Alice Lewis' used in several re-tellings was simply an invented name. The paper trail leading to Rose May Timmis as the writer is easy to trace. A quick search on an online database revealed that in the December ¼ of 1924, one Charles Hughes married Rose M. Timmis in Stoke. Agnes Hodgkinson had married William Timmis in Stoke in the December ¼ of 1896. The 1901 census showed that their daughter was Rose May Timmis. The 1911 census shows that her grandmother Caroline Hodgkinson was living with the family in Shelton Old Road. To cap it all, in 1912, Rose Timmis was 14 years old.
A less well known Potteries born sailor who also perished in the Titanic disaster was senior fourth engineer Leonard Hodgkinson. At the time of his death he was 46 years old, and like Smith he had spent most of his adult life at sea, albeit in a far different environment to that of his much more famous shipmate. As a member of the ship’s engineering staff, his working life was one spent for the most part in noisy, hot engine rooms, with little view of sea or sky save when he was off duty.
Though Leonard’s body was never found, he is remembered in several memorials, most notably on the Southampton Engineers Memorial, East Park (shown right); the Titanic and Engineers memorial, Liverpool; the Glasgow Institute of Marine Engineers memorial; the Institute of Marine Engineers memorial, London. There is also a brass memorial plaque in the church of St. Faithful, in Crosby, Liverpool, dedicated to the memory of the Chief Engineer and his Engine Room staff.(7)