Not to be confused with survivor John (Samuel) Collins of Lifeboat 1
John Collins was a scullion and assistant cook aboard RMS Titanic He survived the sinking on top of the upturned Collapsible B.
Biography[]
John Collins was born on October 24th, 1894 in Belfast, Antrim, Ireland as the son of James Henry Collins and Harriett Russell. Both were from Roman Catholic backgrounds. Collins was one of nine children in the family, two of whom died during infancy.
Early Life[]
Not much is known about John’s early life, he and his family appear on the 1901 census living on Dagmar Street in County Ward in the centre of Belfast. When John was 14, his father had passed away. At the age of 16, Collins had left school and had begun working as a messenger, later working for the Ulster Reform Club, whose members consisted of Liberal Unionists, including William James Pirrie. In 1911 he lived at 33 Ballycarry Street, with his remaining siblings and widowed mother.
Titanic[]
John signed onto the RMS Titanic in Southampton on April 4th, 1912. He gave his address as 65 Ballycarry Street in Belfast, he also claimed that his first ship to work on was the Titanic, he signed on as a scullion and would receive £3, s10, per month.
Around 9:00 P.M. on April 14th, John had stopped working for the night, as he would take a stroll in the alleyway before retiring to his bunk around 10:00 P.M. When the iceberg hit the ship, John was jolted awake by the collision, he then left his bed and reported hearing steam being vented. When he got up to the deck, he went towards the well deck near the bow and saw tons of ice chunks on the starboard side.
He returned to the Boat Deck at around 1:10 A.M. and saw lifeboat 16 to which John was assigned to. It was packed with firemen and stewards so he gave up and went forward, sensing there was no hope for him to get on that boat. When he moved towards the forward part of the Boat Deck he came across a steward and a woman with two children; one child was crying so John took it into his arms.
The five then made their way over to the starboard side where Collapsible A was being prepared. It was very late and the Titanic took a sudden dip, the party got separated as a result, while John lost grip of the child as he ended up almost drowning under water. He eventually resurfaced, swam over and pulled himself aboard Collapsible B. Where he began helping the other people row along the water.
After the sinking, John and the others were rescued by lifeboats 12 and 4, which were later picked up by the Carpathia. After the rescue ship arrived in New York, he testified in the US Inquiry. He described the last stages of the sinking of the ship as “an explosion followed by the stern falling back into the water”.
Later Life[]
John continued to work on sea well into the 1920s. He lost his mother to a stroke in 1921. Around the late 1930s. John suffered from an illness known as syphilis, which paralyzed him. They admitted him into the Belfast Mental Institution, which was sort of a psychiatric hospital. Hepassed away on February 6th, 1941.