Faces of the Titanic: William Burke - hero and dining room steward to Macy's founder survived

Hero who saved a falling woman as she jumped from ship lived out the rest of his life in Britain

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William Burke - survivor of the Titanic disaster

Photo by Mercier Press

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Visit our Titanic Centenary Commemoration section here

PHOTOS - photographs of some of the Irish on board

Profile taken from Senan Molony's book "The Irish Aboard the Titanic"

Dining-room steward.
From: Queenstown, County Cork.
Residence: 57 Bridge Street, Southampton.

William Burke (30) saved a woman from drowning when she jumped from the Titanic but missed the lifeboat. He caught her by the ankle and held fast in one of the most terrifying individual incidents of the whole drama. The woman was then taken back aboard the ship at the deck below.

A dining-room steward in First Class, Burke was assigned to Isidor and Ida Blun Strauss, the elderly founder of Macy’s Department Store in New York and his wife, who chose to die together when the supreme test came. In his testimony to the American inquiry, Burke told Senator William Alden Smith how he was in his bunk, awake, in a dormitory of dining room stewards, when the ship struck:

"When I first felt the impact I did not know exactly what to make of it. I thought probably she had dropped her propeller, or something. I did not get up right away. I waited for probably a quarter of an hour. About a quarter of an hour or 20 minutes later the order came to get out lifebelts and get up on deck and take our overcoats.

"Mention was made of the fact that it was very cold. I immediately got up with everybody else. Everybody was taking a lifebelt. I did not at that time bother about a lifebelt. I put on my coat and dressed in the ordinary way. As we were going out one of the last men said, “There is a lifebelt near my bunk, if you want one.” I went back and got this lifebelt, and carried it out and took it up on deck. I went to the boat deck on the starboard side.

"I went to my station from there and found my boat (No. 1) had gone. I thought the
next best thing to do was to assist with some other boat … As I got to No. 10 boat, the
Chief Officer was there [Henry Wilde].

"I just heard him say, “How many seamen are in that boat?” The answer came back,

"Two, sir.” He turned to some man standing there and said, “Is there any man here can pull an oar?” Nobody answered, but a man who seemed to me like a foreigner got close to him, and I didn’t hear what he said, but he simply pushed him aside, and said, “You are of no use to me.” I went to him and told him I could pull an oar but was not anxious to go unless he wanted me to go. He said, “Get right in there”, and he pushed me toward the boat, and I simply stepped in the boat and got in …

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