Titanic

The Row shop (Lowe and Sons - an easy to miss, rather upmarket, silversmith) has an intact Edwardian hardwood interior - the best example of its period in Chester, with a stair to an arcaded gallery at third storey level, having tapered square posts, with entasis, round arches and triple keys. This gallery probably reflects the 17thC arrangement. There is a probably 17thC chamfered oak beam across shop and rear passage. The chamber above the Row has a C17 beam morticed for a former stud partition. The rear wing, east, has Georgian brickwork and a Georgian window. A narrow stair leads to the altered fourth storey which has some oak studding, wattle-and-daub and an exposed 17thC trenched-purlin roof truss. It's often been said that it's the oldest store still trading in Chester city centre.



Lowe and Sons was founded in Chester by the first George Lowe in 1770 and has occupied the premises in Bridge Street Row since 1804. Harold Lowe, a grandson of George Lowe of Chester, was fifth officer on the Titanic and one of the heroes of its sinking in 1912.

Harold Lowe
Harold Lowe grew up in Barmouth where his father ran a branch of Lowe and Sons and was a regular visitor to the Chester store, then owned by his uncle. Harold did have the opportunity to join the family business but instead chose to run away to sea.



He was born Harold Godfrey Lowe at Bryn Lupus Llanrhos, Caernarvonshire, on 21 November 1882, the fourth of eight children, born to George and Harriet Lowe. The family later moved first to Harlech (1883) and then in 1893 to Penrallt, Barmouth and Harold learnt to sail on the Mawddach estuary. His elder brother George was drowned in the estuary in a boating accident in 1895 and Harold himself had a boating accident in 1896 when he was capsized. He ran away to sea at age 14, as a cabin boy on a traditional square-rigged sailing ship from Liverpool. The first record of him on a ship is from 1900 when he was an ordinary seaman on the William Keith. In 1904 he joined the RNR as a rating. During the next five years he earned enough certificates to make him an officer, becoming qualified as a second mate in 1906 and as first mate in 1908. In 1911, he held a masters certificate and joined the White Star Line. In his own words, he had "experience with pretty well every ship afloat – the different classes of ships afloat – from the schooner to the square-rigged sailing vessel, and from that to steamships, and of all sizes." He served as third officer on White Star's Belgic and on Tropic before being transferred to Titanic as Fifth Officer in 1912. Despite his numerous years at sea, however, the maiden voyage of Titanic was to be his first transatlantic crossing. Like the ship's other junior officers, Lowe reported to White Star's Liverpool offices at nine o'clock in the morning on 26 March 1912, and travelled to board the Titanic at Belfast the following day. On sailing day (10 April), Lowe assisted (among other things) in the lowering of two of the starboard lifeboats to satisfy the Board of Trade that the Titanic met safety regulations.

On 14 April 1912, he was Fifth Officer on RMS Titanic when the newly built liner struck an iceberg.

Lowe had been relieved at 8.00 PM by Sixth Officer Moody, was off watch at the time and fast asleep in his bunk at 11:40 when the ship struck the iceberg. He remained asleep through the collision and did not wake up until as much as half an hour had passed; as he explained later, "We officers do not have any too much sleep, and therefore when we sleep, we die."

He was eventually alerted by the sound of voices outside his cabin on the boat deck (strangely none of the other officers had thought to rouse him). He was put in charge of loading passengers into some of the lifeboats by Third Officer Pitman. Around 1.30 AM, Lowe engaged in a conversation with Sixth Officer Moody: While launching lifeboat Nos. 14 and 16 on the port side of the ship, the two junior officers felt that this group of boats needed to have an officer with them. Moody insisted that Lowe should get onto lifeboat No. 14 and that he would get on another one.

It was only women and children who were allowed but a few men tried to get on the lifeboats. While no. 14 was being lowered Lowe dissuaded them with his pistol and fired three shots into the air to show that he meant business.

He took charge of lifeboat 14 and ordered it to stay 150 yards from the sinking liner with the intention of returning to pick up survivors in the water. He gathered together four more lifeboats and transferred people from his own boat to the other four, then with a volunteer crew he set out to try to recover any survivors amongst the wreckage and dead bodies. His boat picked up four survivors, one of whom died from injuries. Eventually they were all rescued by Cunarder RMS Carpathia. An image taken by a passenger on the Carpathia clearly shows Lowe at the tiller of lifeboat 14 as they approach rescue. He remained aboard his lifeboat long enough to ship the mast and make certain everything was properly stowed.

The Titanic survivors arrived at Pier 54 in New York on 18 April. Lowe was soon called upon to testify in the American inquiry into the sinking. He boarded the Adriatic on 2 May to return to England, where he participated in the British inquiry. Lowe's testimony in the American Senate Hearing was direct, often to the point of being flippant, although some of the questions he was asked to answer were rather silly; when asked what an iceberg was composed of, Lowe responded, "Ice, I suppose, sir." Lowe also came under some fire for some remarks. He had to apologise twice for using the word "Italian" as synonym for "coward".

Lowe served in the Royal Navy during the First World War. He served on HMS Donegal and, in the Far East, HMS Suffolk. He eventually attained the rank of Lieutenant Commander of the Royal Navy Reserve, before being released by the RNR with the rank of Commodore in 1927.

He retired from seafaring in 1931 and moved into 1 Marine Crescent, Deganwy. He pursued his hobbies of boating, fishing and shooting, and after the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 became an Air Raid Precautions warden. He suffered a stroke in 1942 which left him confined to a bath chair and died on 12th May 1944. His death certificate cited hypertension and "cerebral haemorrhage malaria (chronic)". He had probably become infected by malaria as a young man sailing around Africa.

He is buried in Llandrillo. In the same churchyard is that of the body of a man who was found floating in the sea off Rhos Point at the end of December 1894. He was wearing a lifebelt inscribed with a ship’s name, Loweswater,.and had a cross tattooed on his arm. The ship owners, Jackson, Metcalfe & Co. of Liverpool, claimed to have no knowledge of the man and refused to attend the inquest. The jury criticised the owners, and all the jurors attended the man’s funeral as a token of respect.

Walter Wynn
Lowe is not the only connection between Chester and the doomed ship: Walter Wynn, a surviving deckhand, was born in Chester.

Lillian Hughes
Lilian, daughter of Thomas Hughes perished in the sinking;

USS Chester
The ship which accompanied the Carpathia to New York was USS Chester.

Sources and Links

 * Harold Lowe and his connection with Chester;
 * The Lowe family;