Hopes and dreams lost on the Titanic

Aug 23 2007 by Robin Turner, Western Mail

WHEN the mighty Titanic set sail for New York on April 12, 1912, it carried a mixture of the world’s wealthiest basking in first class and poor immigrants packed into steerage.

And in third class were two of Wales’ top boxers, 28-year-old Dai Bowen and 26-year-old Les Williams, both from the Rhondda who had won lucrative contacts to fight America’s finest fighters.

Now their stories – and those of the ill-fated ship’s other “forgotten” Welsh passengers – are set to be told when an exhibition devoted to the iconic liner is due in Wales for the first time.

Donning their best jackets, Bowen and Williams proudly purchased their £16/2/0 “dream” tickets from the Dean and Dawson Tourist and Steamship Agency in Cardiff’s St Mary’s Street.

But just a few days later, at 11.40pm on April 14, the liner considered so safe it only held 20 lifeboats instead of a possible 48, struck an Atlantic iceberg and sank in 2½ hours. A total of 1,572 passengers and crew died and just 705 were rescued.

The would-be Welsh boxing kings never got their chance to fight and were both drowned, Dai Bowen’s body never being found and Les Williams’s picked up by a ship in the area days later. His body was buried as sea.

More than 95 years later the organisers of the travelling Titanic Honour and Glory exhibition – in Swansea Museum from October 20 – want descendants of those who died or who survived the sinking of the Titanic to contact the museum.

Scottish couple Sean Szmalc and Margot Corson hope the descendants will share family memories of the Welsh who sailed on the Titanic’s notorious maiden voyage.

Among them also were Evan Davies, a 22-year-old collier and his pit colleague William Rogers, both from Pontardawe in the Swansea Valley, both looking for a new life in the US’s mining industry. And there was Robert William Leyshon, son of a Swansea solicitor who planned to join his brother John in business in New York. They all perished in the sinking. Two crew members from the Swansea area, CW Samuel and WC Foley, were also reported among the missing.

Mr Szmalc, who became interested in the Titanic story at the age of five after watching a film about it, said, “We would love for anyone from Wales to get in touch with the museum to tell us their family stories about the Titanic.”

The Swansea exhibition will feature effects from the Oscar-winning Titanic movie by James Cameron including film costumes and the Heart of the Ocean jewel worn by Kate Winslet. Other authentic treasures from the ship will also be on show.

Museum events officer Roger Gale said yesterday he had already been in touch with the granddaughter of one of those who died in the sinking and a number of other South Wales relatives of those who had been on the Titanic. He said, “The ship held thousands of passengers all with interesting stories. One Welsh passenger, I won’t say who, was escaping a scandalous affair and planning a new life in America but sadly he never made it.”