Edward Pomeroy Colley

http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/titanic-victim/edward-pomeroy-...

• Name: Mr Edward Pomeroy Colley
• Born: Thursday 15th April 1875
• Age: 37 years
• Last Residence: in Dublin Ireland
• 1st Class passenger
• First Embarked: Southampton on Wednesday 10th April 1912
• Ticket No. 5727 , £25 11s 9d
• Cabin No.: E58
• Died in the sinking.
• Body Not Recovered

Mr Edward Pomery Colley was born into a well-to-do family in County Kildare, Ireland, 15 April 1875.

He was a civil engineer who shared a mansion in Dublin with his older brother, George, who was a magistrate. During the Klondike Gold Rush he opened a mining brokerage firm in Vancouver, and successfully speculated in mining stocks;. Mr Colley had business interests on both sides of the Atlanic and frequently travelled between Dublin and a home on Vancouver Island in Victoria's affluent English Bay neighbourhood. He had been in Ireland for Christmas, 1911, and was returning to Canada aboard the Titanic. He was about to go to work as a consultant to the prominent British Columbia industrialist James Dunsmuir.

He prepaid £19 11s 9d for first class ticket No: 17387, and then had to pay a final of £6 for his contract ticket number 5727. Presumably, because of season-changing (1). He boarded the Titanic at Southampton and occupied cabin E-58.

On board he and four other men attached themselves to American socialite Mrs Churchill Candee and the group became known as her "coterie." Little is known about Colley, but one passenger recalls he was "a roly poly Irishman who laughed a lot but said little." On the night of the sinking he attended a concert in the first class reception area on D-Deck, and retired to his cabin just after 11 p.m.

He died in the wreck on the morning of his 37th birthday. A month later, on May 25, 1912, the Tipperary Star reported that Colley's brother "is about to proceed to British Columbia to look after the estates of Major Edward Pomery Colley who was one of the heroes who sacrificed his life for others in the terrible Titanic disaster...when the sad news that he had paid the penalty of his heroism with the foundering of the monster liner was made known, all creeds and classes in Tipperary and the surrounding district tendered their sympathetic condolences to a popular gentleman in a most trying time."

Notes

1. One source (AH) suggests he paid £28 10 shillings for a second class cabin, but on board paid another £6 to be upgraded to First Class.

References and Sources

• Alan Hustak (1999) Titanic: The Canadian Story. Véhicule Press. ISBN 1 55065 113 7

Credits

• Alan Hustak, Canada
• Hermann Söldner, Germany

Edward was from Dublin, Ireland. One of ten children, he came from a very distinguished well-off family; his father, Henry Fitzgeorge Colley, was a landlord and magistrate, one of his sisters, Constance, was a pioneering doctor, and his uncle Sir George Pomeroy Colley was a career soldier of great importance in the British Army, having served in India, Afghanistan, and China, and also served as the Governor of Natal. One of his nieces, Elizabeth Bowen, child of his sister Florence, was also a famous novelist, and one of his brothers, William, served as the curate of St. John's Church in Harperden, Herts. Edward was also a relative of the Duke of Wellington. In spite of being from such a wealthy and distinguished family, however, he decided to strike out for a new life in North America. He found great success in British Columbia, Canada, as a land surveyer, with particular financial assets in mining. Edward perished on the Titanic on his thirty-seventh birthday. He was one of a handful of first-class Irish passengers. There are two memorial plaques to him today, one at St. John's Church and the other at the parish church in Hythe, Kent.

• Reference: Find A Grave Memorial - SmartCopy: May 9 2019, 21:36:49 UTC