The true story of Wallace Hartley, the violinist who performed during the sinking of the Titanic

After midnight on April 14, 1912, on the eve of the sinking of the Titanic, the orchestra began to play. When disaster was imminent Wallace Henry Hartley He continues to play the violin, setting the tempo for his colleagues. When he finished he put his instrument away and with a slight reference said “Gentlemen, goodbye.” Nothing was heard of him until he became one of the bodies found a few days after the tragedy.

Wallace was born in Colne, Lancashire, to a family dedicated to the cotton industry, a frequent occurrence in a place which would gain worldwide prestige for its textile production. However, the young man does not carry on the family tradition and devotes himself to his musical career. His father introduced him to religious knowledge – they were Methodists – and to the violin, and it was also he who taught him the hymn he would sing that night of sadness. With friends from his hometown, he founded the Colne Band, a musical group which acquired a certain notoriety in this post-Victorian England, ready to show all the splendor of an Empire which spanned a quarter of the planet.

Among the pillars that supported the Empire was the British Navy, the pride of a nation that displayed its naval might to the world. Wallace and the Colne Band were tempted to perform on various Cunard Company ships, including the RMS Lusitania, an ocean liner that would also have a tragic end. The Colne Band was thriving and in addition to their tours on Cunard Line ships, they were invited to perform in prestigious theaters and venues such as Collinson’s Orient Café in Leeds.

But Hartley prospered not only musically but also emotionally, since in 1911 he encountered Marie robinson, whom he intended to marry. However, the offer to play with his orchestra on the largest and most luxurious ocean liner in the world prompted him to postpone the wedding. So she had no idea that she would never be celebrated and that Mary would remain celibate and hurt by the death of her fiancé until stomach cancer took her out of this world in 1931.

Throughout the four days of the voyage on the high seas, the Colne Band performed countless times, including at church services. On the night of April 14, the sailor Fleet Frédéric he visualized an iceberg and sounded the alarm. No one would understand why Captain Smith insisted on crossing an iceberg infested sea and why the lookouts did not have binoculars tonight. The truth is that Captain Smith, overwhelmed by the circumstances, gave inconsistent orders, including the order that only women and children should board the lifeboats, which he knew were insufficient to accommodate all of them. crew. This is the number of boats that were only half full. Five hundred people would have been saved if they had completed the elementary task of finishing the lifeboats, but, except for conducting the orchestra, all was chaos and lack of command that terrible night.

Wallace knew the limited space, and faced with the inevitable, he did the one thing he knew how to do: playing his violin at the head of the orchestra to bring ultimate consolation to those who desperately seek to embark on a boat and others who resign themselves to being swallowed up by the sea. In addition to his repertoire, many passengers, believing that they would soon lose their lives, asked him to perform religious hymns. While not all versions coincide – there are those who say the last thing they were heard to perform was Our God, our help in the ages-, most agree that they ran Closer, My god to you, the melody he had learned from his father.

The Colne Band continued to play until the collapse was inevitable, at which point Hartley said goodbye to his teammates. This last act of playing to the end, showing the courage and composure that the other crew members lacked, gained international prestige for Hartley, whose body was found a few days later with his violin.

His father organized the funeral attended by 30,000 people to say goodbye to the musician turned hero who continued to play his melodies until the last moment, an image that has become a metaphor for generous gestures in catastrophes which, although superfluous, acquire a symbolic character. For some, Wallace should have cared about their salvation; For others, the fact of continuing to interpret their music to bring a kind of hope to those resigned to death has become an example of the diversity of our human condition, its lights, its shadows and this ultimate altruistic deliverance. .

What had no altruism was the attitude of the owners of the shipping company when they deducted from Hartley’s salary – paid by his parents – the value of the uniform he wore as the group continued to to play.

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