Jersey’s Titanic Story

Five days later, the “unsinkable” ship would lie at the bottom of the ocean having struck an iceberg. The loss of life was around 1,500 passengers and crew, making it one of the deadliest peacetime sinkings of a single ship.

Jersey passengers were travelling in First and Second Class; Lady Duff-Gordon, the celebrated fashion designer; Rosalie Bidois, personal maid to the wealthy American Astor family; and young Bertha Ilett, travelling on her own, all survived to testify to the events of that night. The fates of the Jersey crew members were far more precarious.

Who you were, which class you belonged to, and the lottery of that night in April 1912 when some people were saved and others perished, is unbearably tragic. This new gallery within the Maritime Museum honours and remembers the Islanders involved.