Frederick William Barrett

*\*Not to be confused with Fireman Frederick William Barrett, who didn't survive.*

**Frederick William Barrett** was a Leading Stoker in boiler room No. 6 of the *Titanic*. He survived the sinking.

## Early life

Fred was the only surviving child of Henry Charles Barrett (1862-1909), a Devon workman, and Mary Barrett (born Morgan) (1864-?) of Birkenhead. On 4 October of the same year, he was baptized in St. John's Church in Bootle. Little is known about his youth, but the census of 1891 indicates that he was a wheelwright and his father a woodworker.

Barrett decided to turn to the sea when he discovered that his wife was unfaithful. The date of his first trip to sea is not certain. In 1903, he joined the Cunard Line aboard the RMS *Campania* as a stoker. In 1904, he entered the service of the Allan Line by serving aboard the SS *Parisian* and then the White Star Line aboard the RMS *Cedric*. In 1906, he returned to the Cunard Line serving again on the *Campania*. He then joined the American Line aboard the SS City of New York.

When he signed-on to the *Titanic* on April 6th, 1912; he gave his address as 24 King St. (Southampton). His previous ship was the *New York*. As a leading fireman, he took home monthly wages of £6 10s.

## The collision

On April 14 th, at 11:40 P.M., Barrett was in Boiler Room 6 talking to second engineer John Hesketh when the alarm started to sound and the red light above the watertight door leading aft went on. There was an ear-splitting cracking noise and then it looked like the entire starboard hull was pressed away. With water invading the room and the watertight doors closing, Barrett yelled to his comrades to leave as soon as possible and managed himself to escape. Now in boiler room 5, Barrett saw the damage stretched out all the way to 50 cm behind the watertight bulkhead, giving entrance to a thick stream of water that was now flooding the room.

He stayed in boiler room 5 until 1:00 A.M. At that moment, the watertight bulkhead between boiler rooms 5 & 6 gave away under the water pressure. Barrett and junior assistant Second Engineer Harvey were doused with 30°F water. Barrett heroically jumped away to the steel ladder up, but Harvey was sucked away in the whirling water.

## Rescued

He then went to A Deck, where boatswain Alfred Nichols placed him in charge of lifeboat 13. Once put to sea, boat No. 15 was almost lowered on top of them. Barrett tried to cut the ropes while the other occupants of the boat attempted to keep boat 15 from landing on them.

The next day they were rescued by the *Carpathia*.

## Inquiry

A few weeks later, on May 25th, Frederick Barrett was working on the *Olympic*. When Senator Smith was given a tour of the *Titanic*'s sister by Captain Haddock as part of his investigation, Haddock mentioned that one of his stokers had been aboard *Titanic*, and Smith then went down to the boiler room to talk with Barrett and get a better impression of how conditions had been aboard *Titanic* in the boiler rooms at the time of the collision.

## Afterwards

Frederick later married to Mary Ann Jones on February 16th, 1915 and had many children but only one survived named Harold. Mary later died 1923 and Frederick never remarried and later died on March 3rd, 1931 from pulmonary tuberculosis.