The Titanic:
Some Australian mysteries
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Background 7: Some Australian mysteries

There are many unsolved mysteries surrounding the Titanic and it seems only fair that South Australia should contribute to these!

While searching through the back issues of The Advertiser (the South Australian daily paper), an article was located in the 29/12/70 issue entitled ‘They sang as their ship sank’ .

The article described the funeral of a Mr. John Beattie Butler who was described as the last Australian survivor. In attempting to find out more about him, the following extra information was discovered:

He was born in Rosewater on the 24/3/1887, died on 25/12/1970 and was cremated at Centennial Park on 30/12/70. His occupation was listed as Boiler Attendant.

Whilst tracking down Mr. Beattie Butler, I was told of a grave in the cemetery at Aldinga, a small coastal town in South Australia that had an inscription that mentioned the Titanic.

A trip to Aldinga revealed that the grave in question was that of Mary Janet and Colin McRae. However the headstone also recorded the fates of their children, and third on the list was this inscription:

Alan 1889 - 1912 (Missing SS Titanic)

The puzzling, but by now not surprising, thing is that neither of the above names appear on either the passenger or the crew lists! All current lists have been compiled from original lists that were hand written. If that handwriting was either particularly bad or particularly ‘flowery’ with many loops and twirls then exact spellings of names can be difficult to make out.

Also remember that the clerks often wrote the name in the way that they thought it should be spelled or the way that they heard it pronounced.

All of these factors conspire together to make the task of the modern historian interesting if not difficult!

Investigation 7: Some Australian mysteries

There does not appear to be any exact match in either the passenger or the crew lists for either of these people.

  1. What are the closest, likely matches you can make?
  2. Can you offer any explanation for these two mysteries?

The newspaper article raises a number of other issues:

  1. Who were the members of the Salvation Army group?
  2. Which lifeboat was Mr. Butler likely to have been in?
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