The Titanic’s real Jack pining for his ‘Rose’: Incredible letter reveals tragic third class passenger had a ‘good cry’ over lost love from doomed vessel before perishing in 1912 disaster
The tragic story of a real-life Jack Dawson who was pining for his ‘Rose’ when he boarded the Titanic has emerged 113 years on.
Ernest Tomlin was a lowly third class passenger who got on the luxury liner in Southampton to return to America to complete a Bible studies degree.
According to a never-before-seen letter, he had seemingly been left heartbroken by the break-up of a relationship with a woman called Rose and had cried for 24 hours.
After the Titanic left Southampton for its ill-fated voyage to New York, Ernest mingled with fellow third class passengers.
In another echo of Jame Cameron’s 1997 blockbuster movie, Ernest observed how some foreign passengers went mad for gambling and played card games for pennies.
In the film, Leonardo DiCaprio’s Jack has a passionate love affair with Kate Winslet’s character Rose after winning his ticket for the Titanic’s voyage by gambling at cards.
But the fictional romance ends in tragedy when Jack is among the passengers to perish after the Titanic hits an iceberg. The real disaster occurred on April 15, 1912.
Ernest dated his correspondence at 3pm on April 10, the day the Titanic departed Britain.
The tragic story of a real-life Jack Dawson who was pining for his ‘Rose’ when he boarded the Titanic has emerged 113 years on. Third class passenger Ernest Tomlin wrote home about a seeming lost love. Right: Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as Jack and Rose in James Cameron’s 1997 film
Part of the letter reads: ‘Dearest Mother and all. Do not tell anybody but I showed up to have a good cry 24 hours ago which would give me back my Rose but crying will not do that will it?
‘Sometime in our lives we are forced to meet grim realities my time is now. It is to be now I’m sorry to have to leave you all.’
The 21-year-old poignantly signed off his five-page letter home with the telling words ‘I’m sorry to have to leave you all.’
Ernest also gave a detailed description with a diagram of the so-called New York incident.
This involved the Titanic almost colliding with the SS New York due to its sheer size as it left Southampton.
He posted the letter at Queenstown (Cobh) Ireland, Titanic’s last port of call.
Ernest died after the luxury liner struck an iceberg and sank on April 15, 1912.
Recovered from his body was his water-stained pocket diary. The final entry he made was April 10th when he simply marked it with the word ‘Titanic.’
According to a never-before-seen letter, he had seemingly been left heartbroken by the break-up of a relationship with a woman called Rose and had cried for 24 hours
The second and third page of Ernest’s letter to his parents. He drew a diagram of the ship’s near miss with SS New York in Southampton
The 21-year-old poignantly signed off his five-page letter home with the telling words ‘I’m sorry to have to leave you all’
Now the letter and the diary as well as other items have been offered for sale for the first time by a direct descendant of the Tomlin family.
They are being sold by Henry Aldridge & Son of Devizes, Wilts, for a combined £50,000.
Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said: ‘It is one of the most complete Titanic archives to have come to market in the past 30 years.
‘It has been within the Tomlin family since 1912, having only been looked at sporadically over the past 113 years.
‘The items have been kept in a locked safety box and have never been seen before. They are fresh to the market and previously unknown to Titanic collectors.
‘His letter home to his mother is exceptional. It is written over five pages and includes content describing life on board for a third class passenger as well as his own diagram of the near-miss with SS New York in Southampton.
‘There is also his heartbreak of what appears to be an unrequited love with a lady called Rose. Nothing is known of who Rose was but clearly was someone who had been close to Ernest’s heart.
‘In a way Ernest does bear some similarities to Leonardo DiCaprio’s character Jack Dawson in that he was a third class passenger, was involved in gambling on board and was apparently in love with a woman called Rose.’
Recovered from his body was his water-stained pocket diary and pencil. The final entry he made was April 10th when he simply marked it with the word ‘Titanic’
The final entry he made was April 10th when he simply marked it with the word ‘Titanic’
Another part of the diary owned by Titanic victim Ernest Tomlin
Mr Aldridge added: ‘His pocket diary is an incredibly poignant object that has an obvious direct link to one of Titanic’s victims.
‘It shows signs of immersion in the north Atlantic before it was recovered from Ernest’s body several days after the tragedy.
‘The week from Sunday, April 7 to Saturday, April 13 is empty apart from Wednesday, April 10 where Ernest simply wrote the word Titanic.’
Also recovered from Ernest’s body was a water-stained $1 bank note that was originally sewn into his waistcoat for safekeeping.
And there are two letters from White Star Line headed notepaper sent to Ernest’s family weeks after the disaster confirming he was one of the victims and that his body had been recovered and buried in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Ernest Tomlin was born to parents Edwin and Harriet who lived in Notting Hill, London, and had six siblings.
In 1907 he moved to Des Moines, Iowa, US, where he enrolled at The Bible College of Drake University in the city.
He later returned to England but by early 1912 he had decided to go back to Drake University and complete his degree.
He purchased a third class ticket for the Adriatic but was moved to Titanic and was travelling alone.
His body was recovered by the recovery ship the Mackay Bennett after the tragedy in which 1,520 people died.
The sale takes place on November 22.
The horrific 1912 Titanic tragedy
Constructed by Belfast-based shipbuilders Harland and Wolff between 1909 and 1912, the RMS Titanic was the largest ship afloat of her time.
Owned and operated by the White Star Line, the passenger vessel set sail on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York on April 10, 1912.
The liner made two short stops en route to her planned Atlantic crossing ¿ one at the French port of Cherbourg, the other at Cork Harbour, Ireland, where smaller vessels ferried passengers on and off board the Titanic.
Nearly five days into her voyage, the Titanic struck an iceberg at around 23:40 local time, generating six narrow openings in the vessel’s starboard hull, believed to have occurred as a result of the rivets in the hull snapping.
At just before midnight on April 14, 1912, the RMS Titanic hit an iceberg while travelling on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York. Within three hours, the ‘unsinkable’ ship had slipped beneath the waves of the freezing Atlantic Ocean, killing more than 1,500 people
The Titanic took on water some fifteen times faster than could be pumped out, with the hull damage proving too extensive for the vessel’s watertight bulkheads to keep the flooding from spreading across the liner’s compartmentalised lower decks.
After around two-and-a-half hours, the vessel broke into two sections and sank, each settling to the seafloor around a third of a mile apart.
Around 1,500 people were believed lost in the tragedy, including around 815 of the liner’s passengers.
The ship’s main feature was the Grand Staircase. It was built from English solid oak, and enhanced with wrought iron. The decorated glass domes above were designed to let in as much natural light as possible
At its launch, the luxurious Titanic was the largest ship in the world, and was carrying some of the wealthiest people in the world, as well as hundreds of people from Britain, Ireland, and elsewhere who were seeking a new life in the United States.
Eight Chinese men were on board and six survived, landing in New York three days later aboard the Carpathia, the first ship to arrive at the scene of the disaster.
Under the United States’ Chinese Exclusion Act, the men were transferred 24 hours later to a British steamship and sent to Cuba
Nearly five days into her voyage, the Titanic struck an iceberg at around 23:40 local time, generating six narrow openings in the vessel’s starboard hull, believed to have occurred as a result of the rivets in the hull snapping. Pictured, the iceberg believed to have sunk the Titanic
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