The
cache page co-ordinates will take you to a location where you will
see a street name road sign. From here you can
work out the final location (near toThomas Andrews birthplace home)
using the simple method below.
N54 AB.CDE W5
FG.HIJ
A =
total number of letters on the 5th
word
B =
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word
C =
total number of letters on the 2nd
word
D =
total number of letters on the 4th plus 7th
words
E =
total number of letters on the 1st minus 2nd
words
F =
total number of letters in the last word
G =
total number of letters in the 4th plus 5th
words
H =
total number of letters in the last word
I =
total number of letters in the 3rd minus 4th
words
J =
total number of letters in the 3rd
word
Thomas Andrews,
Jr. (7 February 1873 – 15 April 1912) was an Irish-born
businessman and shipbuilder; managing director and head of the
draughting department for the shipbuilding company Harland and
Wolff in Belfast, Ireland. Andrews was the shipbuilder in charge of
the plans for the ocean liner RMS Titanic. He was travelling on
board the Titanic during its maiden voyage when it hit an iceberg
on 14 April 1912 and was one of the 1,517 people who perished in
the disaster.
Thomas Andrews was born at Ardara House, Comber, County Down, to
Thomas Andrews, a member of the Privy Council of Ireland, and Eliza
Pirrie. The younger brother to future Northern Ireland Prime
Minister John Miller Andrews, Thomas Andrews lived with his family
in Ardara, Comber. In 1884, Andrews began attending the Royal
Belfast Academical Institution until 1889 when, at the age of
sixteen, he began a premium apprenticeship at Harland and Wolff
where his uncle, the Viscount Pirrie, was part owner.
At Harland and Wolff, he began with three months in the joiners'
shop, followed by a month in the cabinetmakers' and then a further
two months working on the ships. The last eighteen months of his
five-year apprenticeship were spent in the drawing office. In 1901,
Andrews, after working his way up through the many departments of
the company, became the manager of the construction works. That
same year, he also became a member of the Institution of Naval
Architects. In 1907, Andrews was appointed the managing director
and head of the draughting department at Harland and Wolff. During
his long years of apprenticeship, study, and work, Andrews had
become well-liked in the company and amongst the shipyard's
employees.
On 24 June 1908, he married Helen Reilly Barbour, daughter of
John Doherty Barbour and sister to Milne Barbour. Their daughter,
Elizabeth Law Barber Andrews (known by her initials, "ELBA"), was
born on 27 November 1910. The couple lived at "Dunallan",12 Windsor
Avenue, Belfast. It is known that Andrews took Helen to view the
RMS Titanic one night, shortly before Elizabeth was born. After
Thomas's death, Helen married Henry Peirson Harland (of the Harland
and Wolff family) and died 22 August 1966 in Northern
Ireland.
RMS
Titanic
In 1907, Andrews began to oversee the plans for a new superliner,
the RMS Olympic for the White Star Line. The Olympic and its sister
ship the RMS Titanic, which began construction in 1909, were
designed by William Pirrie and general manager Alexander Carlisle
along with Andrews. As he had done for the other ships he had
overseen, Andrews familiarized himself with every detail of the
Olympic and Titanic, in order to ensure that they were in optimal
working order.
Andrews headed a group of Harland and Wolff workers
who went on the maiden voyages of the ships built by the company,
to observe ship operations and spot any necessary improvements. The
Titanic was no exception, so Andrews and the rest of his Harland
and Wolff group travelled from Belfast to Southampton on Titanic
for the beginning of Titanic's maiden voyage on 10 April 1912.
During the voyage, Andrews took notes on various improvements he
felt were needed. However, on 14 April, Andrews remarked to a
friend that Titanic was "as nearly perfect as human brains can make
her."
On 14 April at 11:40 PM, the Titanic struck an iceberg
on the ship’s starboard side. Andrews had been in his
stateroom sleeping at the time, and barely noticed the collision.
Captain Edward J. Smith had Andrews summoned to help examine the
damage. Andrews and captain Smith discussed the damage to the ship
shortly after midnight, after Andrews had toured the damaged
section of the ship and received several reports of the vessel's
damage. Andrews determined that the first six of the ship's
watertight compartments were rapidly flooding. Andrews knew that if
more than four of the ship's compartments flooded, it would
inevitably sink. He relayed this information to Captain Smith,
adding that in his opinion, the vessel had only about an hour
before it completely sank. He also informed Smith of the chronic
shortage of lifeboats on board the ship.
As the evacuation of the Titanic began, Andrews
searched staterooms telling the passengers to put on lifebelts and
go up on deck. Fully aware of the short time the ship had left and
of the lack of lifeboat space for all passengers and crew, he
continued to urge reluctant people into the lifeboats in the hope
of filling them as fully as possible. According to John Stewart, a
steward on the ship, Andrews was last seen staring at a painting,
"Plymouth Harbour", above the fireplace in the first–class
smoking room. The painting depicted the entrance to Plymouth Sound,
which Titanic had been expected to visit on her return voyage. The
painting is often incorrectly shown on television and in movies as
depicting the entrance to New York Harbor. Another reported last
sighting was of Thomas Andrews frantically throwing deck chairs
into the ocean for passengers to use as floating devices. Andrews'
body was never recovered.
Finally, on 19 April, his father received a telegram
from his mother's cousin, who had spoken with survivors in New
York, searching for news of Andrews. The telegram was read aloud by
Andrews Sr. to the staff of the home in Comber: "INTERVIEW
TITANIC'S OFFICERS. ALL UNANIMOUS THAT ANDREWS HEROIC UNTO DEATH,
THINKING ONLY SAFETY OTHERS. EXTEND HEARTFELT SYMPATHY TO ALL."
Legacy
Newspaper accounts of the disaster labelled Andrews a
hero. Mary Sloan, a stewardess on the ship, who Andrews persuaded
to enter a lifeboat, later wrote in a letter: "Mr. Andrews met his
fate like a true hero, realizing the great danger, and gave up his
life to save the women and children of the Titanic. They will find
it hard to replace him." A short biography was produced within the
year by Shan Bullock at the request of Sir Horace Plunkett, a
member of Parliament, who felt that Andrews' life was worthy of
being memorialised.
The first location is in view of one of the earliest and
most substantial memorials for a single victim of the Titanic
disaster. The Thomas Andrews Jr. Memorial Hall was opened in
January 1914. The architects were Young and McKenzie with sculpted
work by the artist Sophia Rosamond Praegar. The hall is now
maintained by the South Eastern Education & Library Board and
used by The Andrews Memorial Primary School.