The Titanic Sinks Tonight portrayal of Bolton captain causes anger

Caroline Heaven, a Titanic expert and former nurse, took the documentary to task for its accusation that Bolton-born Captain Stanley Lord’s ship – The Californian – was the ‘mystery ship’ that failed to help survivors during The Titanic’s final hours, despite being close enough to do so.

But Ms Heaven, from Hindley Green, asserts this is not the case, and that the ‘mystery ship’ in question has never been positively identified.

Her work has been published in TV documentaries.

Captain Lord was born in Bolton in 1877, as was the captain of The Carpathian – Sir Arthur Rostron – the other rescue vessel near to the titanic at the time of its sinking.

The RMS Titanic (Image: Martini)

Ms Heaven said: “My blood was boiling when I first watched it, I was so angry.

“I felt responsible, really – poor Captain Lord.”

According to Ms Heaven, The Californian was between 14 and 19 miles away from the Titanic when it sank, meaning neither ship would have been visible to the other over the horizon.

A jury in a 1996 libel trial came to the conclusion that Lord had been wrongly vilified as they ruled in favour of Mr Leslie Harrison, who’s book exonerating Lord was attacked in the press.

He sued for libel after his book, Defending Captain Lord – A Titanic Myth, was criticised.

He won the case, and the high-court Jury concluded in their verdict that Lord had been wrongly treated.

Crewmembers on The Californian did see flares, but only at a great distance, she says.

Captain Stanley Lord (Image: Courtesy private collection (c))

Assuming they were the much more common communication signal rockets, often used between icebound ships, they did not recognise the requests for help.

The Californian’s only radio operator – Cyril Evans – was asleep at the time, so had not registered The Titanic’s requests for aid.

A different ship – The Carpathian – did come to The Titanic’s aid, managing to rescue 710 people, without which the number of lives lost in the infamous tragedy would have been far greater than the 1,517 total.

The Carpathian was captained by another Bolton native – Sr Arthur Rostron, from Astley Bridge.

Sir Rostron was a captain with the Cunard Line, guiding the Carpathia across the Atlantic Ocean in 1912 when he received an emergency signal from the ill-fated HMS Titanic.

Captain Arthur Rostrom of the Carpathian (Image: Echo)

Using a recently-invented Marconi wireless aboard the Titanic, Captain Smith had issued what is thought to be radio’s first recorded distress call after hitting an iceberg at sea.

Sir Rostron was sleeping in his cabin at the time of the disaster but ran on deck and immediately ordered the ship to race towards Titanic’s reported position, travelling through dangerous ice floes, and taking about 3½ hours to reach the stricken vessel.

After the sinking, Sir Rostron was showered with praise and awards, including a knighthood in 1926 and the US Congressional Medal of Honour – a far cry from the much-maligned Captain Lord.

Captain Stanley Lord’s grave, which Ms Heaven often visits to lay a wreath (Image: Courtesy private collection (c))

Ms Heaven’s particular dispute is with episodes two and three of the documentary, where Titanic Captain Edward Smith is shown to be in disbelief that The Californian, which is depicted as being close by, is not helping the survivors.

According to Ms Heaven, the ships were assumed to be so close together due to a miscalculation by The Titanic’s fourth officer, Joseph Boxhall, which was only discovered when The Titanic’s wreck was discovered in 1985.

By this point, it was too late for Captain Lord, who’d already been held up as a scapegoat for the tragedy.

Captain Stanley Lord (Image: Courtesy private collection (c))

A further problem for Captain Lord was that the real ‘mystery ship’ never identified itself, meaning The Californian was the only ship crew that admitted to having seen the flares.

Ms Heaven said: “Lord is unable to defend himself from beyond the grave, so it is up to others to ensure that the truth is told and that documentaries like Titanic Sinks Tonight do not smother the now-known true facts surrounding the Titanic disaster.”

One of the lifeboats that would have been used on The Titanic (Image: Martini)

A BBC Spokesperson said: “It is widely believed that SS Californian was the ship visible from Titanic. 

“We also know that some key events during the sinking of RMS Titanic remain the subject of historical debate, and the programme made extensive use of available evidence, expert opinion, and eyewitness testimony in its account of what happened.

“We stand by the factual accuracy of the series.”