In the Wilderness

Robert Hichens, a British sailor born on September 16, 1882, was on the deck of the RMS Titanic when it sank during her maiden voyage. He was in control of the Lifeboat, and he stubbornly declined to go back and save any more drowning people. He wed Florence Mortimore in Devon, England, in 1906. His refusal to return to the scene of the catastrophe to rescue victims was charged by passengers. claimed he criticised those at the oars and dubbed people in the water "stiffs." Hichens would later claim, in statements provided to the United States Senate inquiry, that he had never used the term "stiffs" to describe bodies and that he had instead used other terms. He was imprisoned in 1933 for attempting to kill Harry Henley and freed in 1937. In 1931, his wife and kids moved away from him to Southampton, where he started drinking heavily. Hichens, died from heart failure on 23 September 1940 at 58, on board the English Trader, as the ship was docked off the shore of Aberdeen, Scotland. His remains were buried in Aberdeen's Trinity Cemetery in Section 10, Lair 244.