George Thomas Macdonald Symons (23 February 1888 – 3 December 1950) was a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

sailor who worked as a

lookout A lookout or look-out is a person in charge of the observation of hazards. The term originally comes from a naval background, where lookouts would watch for other ships, land, and various dangers. The term has now passed into wider parlance. ...

on board the ill-fated RMS ''Titanic''. Symons, who was 24 at the time of the sinking of the ship, was put in charge of one of the first lifeboats to be launched, lifeboat #1. The boat was an emergency cutter which was launched with only 12 people on board, including seven crew members, and had gained notoriety after the disaster.

Early life and ''Titanic''

Symons was born in

Weymouth, Dorset Weymouth is a seaside town in Dorset, on the English Channel coast of England. Situated on a sheltered bay at the mouth of the River Wey, south of the county town of Dorchester, Weymouth had a population of 53,427 in 2021. It is the third l ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, son of Robert James Symons and Bessie Newman. He was one of thirteen children. Symons worked with

Archie Jewell Archibald Jewell (4 December 1888 – 17 April 1917) was a sailor who was on the crew of the Titanic. He survived the sinking of the ''Titanic'' and ''Britannic'', but died during the sinking of the SS ''Donegal'' when it was torpedoed without ...

as a lookout on the ''Titanic''. On the night of 14 April 1912, Symons and Jewell were replaced by their colleagues

Reginald Lee Reginald Lee (19 May 1870 – 6 August 1913) was a lookout stationed in the crow's nest of the RMS ''Titanic'' when the ship collided with an iceberg at 23:40 on 14 April 1912. Biography Born in Benson, England, Lee served in the Royal Navy as ...

and

Frederick Fleet Frederick Fleet (15 October 1887 – 10 January 1965) was a British sailor, crewman and a survivor of the sinking of the . Fleet, along with fellow lookout Reginald Lee, was on duty when the ship struck the iceberg; it was Fleet who first ...

and off-duty when the ship struck the

iceberg An iceberg is a piece of freshwater ice more than 15 m long that has broken off a glacier or an ice shelf and is floating freely in open (salt) water. Smaller chunks of floating glacially-derived ice are called "growlers" or "bergy bits". The ...

. Shortly afterwards, he was ordered to go up to boat deck and help with the task of loading the

lifeboats Lifeboat may refer to: Rescue vessels * Lifeboat (shipboard), a small craft aboard a ship to allow for emergency escape * Lifeboat (rescue), a boat designed for sea rescues * Airborne lifeboat, an air-dropped boat used to save downed airmen A ...

. At around 1:00am, First Officer

William McMaster Murdoch William McMaster Murdoch, RNR (28 February 1873 – 15 April 1912) was a British sailor, who was the First Officer on the . He was the officer in charge on the bridge when the ship collided with an iceberg, and was one of the more than 1,50 ...

began to load Boat #1. Despite the orders of loading the boats with

women and children first ''Women and Children First'' is the third studio album by American Rock music, rock band Van Halen, released on March 26, 1980, on Warner Bros. Records. Produced by Ted Templeman and engineered by Donn Landee, it was the first Van Halen album no ...

, Murdoch put Symons in charge of the lifeboat and loaded it with five stokers, Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon,

Lucy, Lady Duff-Gordon Lucy Christiana, Lady Duff-Gordon (née Sutherland; 13 June 1863 – 20 April 1935) was a leading British fashion designer in the late 19th and early 20th centuries who worked under the professional name Lucile. The first British-based designe ...

, her secretary and three other First-class passengers. The boat finally rowed away from the ''Titanic'' at 1:05a.m. The lifeboat was picked by the RMS ''Carpathia'' hours later. On board the ''Carpathia'', Symons stumbled upon his brother Jack who was a crew member of that ship.

Later life

After the sinking, he returned to Britain and married Mary Jane Bolt. The couple had two daughters. After the outbreak of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

in 1914, Symons served for the

Royal Naval Reserve The Royal Naval Reserve (RNR) is one of the two volunteer reserve forces of the Royal Navy in the United Kingdom. Together with the Royal Marines Reserve, they form the Maritime Reserve. The present RNR was formed by merging the original Ro ...

. Then again, Symons ran into his brother Jack and then both ran into their other brother Bob who had been seriously wounded in combat. They all survived the war. Symons died in Southampton on 3 December 1950.

Early life and ''Titanic''

Later life

References

Further reading