Bristol preacher 'fiery evangelist Uncle Bob Bateman'
One of the many tales about the sinking of the Titanic records the role played by Bob Bateman, a Bristol evangelist. If there's one image that typifies the British stiff upper lip, it's the vision of the hand on the Titanic playing hymns until the unsinkable ship finally sank.
But it's not generally known that the man conducting Abide Wth Me as the icy waters swept across the deck in 1912 was a Bristol preacher 'fiery evangelist Uncle Bob Bateman'. Bateman was the son of a Staple Hill stone mason - Born October 1859 Pendennis, Staple Hill. - He was the son of Charles Bateman and Hester. In 1881 the family were then living at Oldbury Court, Stapleton, Bristol.
In his youth Robert had travelled in America and was extensively educated in England, becoming a Baptist Minister when aged 21. He went on to marry Emily Jane Hall of London in early 1880. They subsequently had seven children. Robert gained a formidable reputation as a hellfire and brimstone campaigner.
But he was known simply as Uncle Bob to the hundreds of Bristol children with whom he worked. He later emigrated to America and even became mayor of Jacksonville, Florida. The founder of the Central City Mission in Jacksonville, Florida, Robert Bateman was a minister who was not afraid to get his hands dirty in the service of Christ. Bateman came from England to personally lay the bricks of the Mission in the city where drunken sailors poured into tattoo parlours, bars and whorehouses.
While sharing the Gospel, he provided thousands of meals, clothed the needy, visited those in jail and housed the homeless. He was called 'the man who distributed more human sunshine than any other in Jacksonville.' But in 1912 he returned to Bristol to arrange a headstone for his mother's grave at the village of Downend. He ran a revival meeting at Kingswood's Evangel Mission Hall, and the Mission's brass band led a procession of 100 people which escorted him to Staple Hill station when he left.
As the train left, a euphonium player serenaded him with an impromptu version of the old hymn, 'Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep' It was an ironic choice, for Uncle Bob was heading to Southampton with his sister-in-law Mrs Ada Balls to board a new and allegedly unsinkable ship on its maiden voyage. It was called the Titanic.
They embarked the Titanic at Southampton and travelled second class, he under ticket number 1166, costing £12 10s 6d. His reputation preceded him and Captain Edward Smith asked if he would conduct a Sunday service with the ship's band.
Bob was with the band when the Titanic hit an iceberg and, contrary to advance promises, began to go down. That night at 11:45 pm the ship Titanic struck an iceberg. As Bateman escorted his sister-in-law to a lifeboat he said, 'Don't be nervous, Annie. This will test our faith. I must stay and let the women go. If we never meet again on this earth, we will meet again in heaven.' He threw his handkerchief into the descending lifeboat saying, 'Put that around your throat. You'll catch cold.'
Dr. Bateman collected about fifty men on the stern of the ship and told them to prepare for death. He led them in saying the Lord's Prayer and as the band played his favourite hymn, 'Nearer my God to Thee', the great ship slid underwater.
The movies and books about the Titanic end with death. Robert Bateman, until his last breath, carried people to life. May we do the same. According to Walter Lord's A Night to Remember As he supervised Ada into lifeboat 10 he said 'If I don't meet you again in this world, I will in the next.' As the boat was lowered he took off his necktie and passed it to Ada as a keepsake. Ada later recalled the following:
'Brother forced me into the last boat, saying he would follow me later. I believe I was the last person to leave the ship. Brother threw his overcoat over my shoulders as the boat was being lowered away and as we neared the water, he took his black necktie and threw it to me with the words, 'Goodbye, God bless you!.' Eye witnesses said later that Bateman pushed his sister-in-law into a lifeboat, then returned to the band, calling on the musicians to play 'Nearer My God to Thee'.
The hymn was taken up by passengers and crew who had been unable to find a place in one of the inadequate number of lifeboats. As the ship slipped under, the band changed to 'Abide With Me'. Bateman was still beating time when the waters closed over his head. Rev. Bateman was lost in the sinking aged 51. His frozen body was subsequently recovered by the cable-laying vessel Mackay-Bennett.
On 6th May 1912 his body was forwarded to Mrs R.J. Bateman of Jacksonville, Florida. He was interred in the Evergreen Cemetery, Jacksonville on 12 May 1912.
Personal Effects found on the body were:
CLOTHING - Black overcoat; black frock coat; vest and trousers.
EFFECTS - Gold watch and chain; masonic charm pin; glasses; knife; photo; fountain pen; pipe lighter; gold links; 4 gold studs; purse; 7s 2¾d.; gold mounted eye glasses; £4 10s. in a sovereign purse; cigar holder; style pin.
Later Salvation Army leader Commander Booth also reported that 'Mrs Abbott, a Salvationist in uniform, was rescued after five hours drifting on a raft, during which time her two sons, aged sixteen-and-a-half and thirteen-and-a-half, drowned before her eyes.' The commander added, 'They died, I am assured, like true Salvationists.'
Commander Booth's message, together with other information about the Army's relief efforts, appeared in the June 1991 edition of 'Voyage', the magazine of Titanic International, a group which researches 'the liners of the world'.
The magazine notes that there may have been a former Salvationist on Titanic - the Rev Robert J. Bateman who, according to Bristol Fishponds Corps' War Cry correspondent, 'was said to have commenced the Army work in this district'.
General William Booth, who celebrated his 83rd birthday the day Titanic sailed from Southampton, responded to the disaster in a cable to President William Taft of the United States. 'My heart is moved,' he wrote, 'by the fearful calamity which has befallen the world in the loss of the Titanic - moved with sorrow for the dead, among whom are some of my long-tried friends; moved with sympathy for the living, whose loss can never be repaired, and moved in its deepest sources of feeling concerning that sudden and awful summons into the presence of God.'
(The Founder wasn't to know then that he too would receive his Home call just four months later.)
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