Jack Phillips

RMS Titanic

In March 1912, Phillips was sent to Belfast, Ireland, to be the chief wireless operator on board Titanic for her maiden voyage. He was joined by junior wireless operator Harold Bride. Stories have appeared that Phillips knew Bride before Titanic, but Bride later stated the pair had never met before he joined the ship in Belfast. Titanic sailed for New York City, United States, from Southampton, England, on 10 April 1912. Phillips celebrated his 25th birthday the day after the voyage began.

On 13 April, Phillips and Bride, spent most of the night before repairing the wireless machine, which had broken down the day before. Bride explained the issue later on, in a letter to the Marconi Company:

Ice reports During the voyage Phillips and Bride received ice warnings and other navigational information from other ships. Amongst the ice reports they received leading up to the night of 14 April were from the , , , , , and , all of which were sent to the bridge and acknowledged by the captain or the ship's operator. Of these, only the Californian was received by Bride while the rest were likely received by Phillips.

At 22:55, Phillips was interrupted by Californians Cyril Evans, the only wireless operator aboard Californian, who said, "Say old man, we are stopped surrounded by ice." Due to Californians relative proximity, and the fact that both Evans and Phillips were using spark-gap wireless sets whose signals bled across the spectrum and were impossible to tune out, meant that Evans's signal was strong and loud in Phillips's ears, while the signals from Cape Race were faint to Phillips and inaudible to Evans.

Though it is unclear whether or not all the messages reached the captain, in particular the Mesaba and Amerika messages which were not recalled by either Bride or any surviving officers, it is known that majority of the ice warnings received had been communicated to Captain Edward Smith, as he acknowledged them in return. He was aware that there was ice in the area and, according to Second Officer Charles Lightoller, discussed this with him. Additionally, both lookouts were told to keep an eye out for "small ice and growlers" by Lightoller on the night of disaster and the Second Officer passed this information onto First Officer William Murdoch who took over the watch at 10:00 PM. Phillips was able to contact which headed for the scene.

After taking a quick break, Phillips returned to the wireless room and reported to Bride that the forward part of the ship was flooded, and they should put on more clothes and lifebelts. Bride began to get ready, while Phillips went back to work on the wireless machine.

The wireless power was almost completely out shortly after 02:00, when Captain Smith arrived and told the men they had done their duty and were relieved. Bride later remembered being moved by the way Phillips continued working. While their backs were turned, a crew member (either a stoker or trimmer) sneaked in and attempted to steal Phillips's lifebelt. Bride, outraged at the man's behaviour, attacked the man and might have hit him with an object. Shortly afterwards, they abandoned the wireless room, leaving the motionless crewman where he fell. The men then split up, Bride heading forward and Phillips heading aft.

Death Conflicting and contradictory information led to popular belief that Phillips possibly managed to make it to the overturned Collapsible Boat B, which was in the charge of Second Officer Charles Lightoller, along with Harold Bride but did not last the night. In his The New York Times interview, Bride said that a man from boat B was dead, and that as he boarded Carpathia, he saw that the dead man was Phillips.

It is clear from Gracie and other 1912 evidence that the man on the upturned collapsible who called out the names of approaching ships was Harold Bride, not Jack Phillips, as Lightoller thought in 1935. Lightoller's 1912 testimony contradicts his 1935 statements that he saw Phillips aboard B and that the body taken off the boat was Phillips. Salon Steward Thomas Whiteley may have been Bride's source for the story; in a press interview, Whiteley claimed that Phillips had been aboard the collapsible, died and was taken aboard Carpathia. As no other witness in 1912 claimed Phillips' body was recovered, and his name was never mentioned by any source aboard Carpathia as being one of the four bodies buried at sea, it is possible that Whiteley was simply mistaken in his identification, or that Phillips was aboard Collapsible B but his body was not recovered.

Legacy

There are memorials to Phillips in Nightingale Cemetery, Farncombe and in the Phillips Memorial Cloister, part of the Phillips Memorial Ground, which lies to the north of the Church of St Peter & St Paul, Godalming. The cloister was designed by architect Hugh Thackeray Turner while the gardens inside and around it was designed by horticulturist Gertrude Jekyll. In 2012, marking the 100th anniversary of the sinking, the Cloister and grounds were renovated. A Wetherspoons pub on Godalming high street is named "The Jack Phillips" in his honour.

In 1915, in Battery Park in New York City, a granite cenotaph was erected decorated with a carved swag of seashells and foliage and inscribed with the names of wireless operators who "lost their lives at sea while performing their duties." Phillips' name was the first carved, with others added soon after. Willa Cather wrote about the commemoration: "This monument is one of the most attractive and most friendly commemorative works in New York... these men died in storm and terror, but their names are brought together here and abide in a pleasant place with cheerful companionship."

On 11 April 2017, on what would have been his 130th birthday, the Godalming Town Council unveiled a blue plaque at Phillips' birthplace.

Portrayals Karl Dannemann (1943) - Titanic (Film) Ashley Cowan (1953) - Titanic (Film) Guy Sorel (1955) - You Are There: The Sinking of the Titanic (TV episode, 22 May 1955) Kenneth Griffith (1958) – A Night to Remember (Film) Alec Sabin (1979) S.O.S. Titanic (TV film) Matt Hill (1996) – Titanic (TV miniseries) Gregory Cooke (1997) – Titanic (Film) Justin Shaw (2003) – Ghosts of the Abyss (Documentary) Mark James Fernandes (2006) – Seconds from Disaster (TV series; Season 3, Episode 1: Titanic) Karl Davies (2008) — The Unsinkable Titanic (Documentary) Ermanis Grinvalds (2011) - Curiosity: What Sank Titanic? (TV episode) Jon Huybrecht (2017) - Titanic: Sinking the Myths (Documentary) Parnell Scott (2025) – Titanic Sinks Tonight (TV series by the BBC)