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FACT CHECK: Did a Male Titanic Passenger Pose as a Woman to Get on a Lifeboat?
David Mikkelson Jul 19, 2000
Claim: A man sneaked his way onto one of the Titanic's lifeboats by donning women's dress.
Rating: False
...If we imagined a disaster similar to the Titanic occurring today, we would likely picture it as an "every man for himself" free-for-all in which faster and stronger passengers shouldered aside the slow, weak, and elderly to secure places for themselves in the available lifeboats. No such melee took place on the decks of the Titanic, however, even though "women and children first" was not a regulation specified by maritime law....Back in 1912, "women and children first" was a rule men followed primarily because doing so was a social imperative;...."a law of human nature." I.... violating this social rule was worse than breaking the law:.... the man who pushed his way into a lifeboat while women remained on board was an irredeemable coward...
....William T. Sloper ...was publicly identified ...as "the man who got off in woman's clothing." ...left the Titanic in ...the first boat launched, after he was invited to take a seat with motion picture actress Dorothy Gibson...many passengers ....were unwilling to trade the warmth and apparent safety of their berths for a seat in an open boat on the freezing Atlantic in the middle of the night, lifeboat No. 7 was filled to only about a third of its 65-passenger capacity....freely allowed Sloper aboard..... eventually launched with only 28 occupants, so neither Sloper ... would have had to disguise himself as a woman to sneak aboard.......Reporters soon gathered outside his room to press him for a story, but Sloper had already promised an exclusive to the editor of his hometown newspaper. According to legend, a reporter for a New York newspaper felt Sloper was acting a bit too disrespectful towards members of the fourth estate by declining to talk and exacted revenge by writing a story that named Sloper as "the man who got off in woman's clothing." .... he subsequently spent many years living down the reputation he had unfairly gained....
...William Carter and Dickinson Bishop, were also spitefully tagged as having disguised themselves as women to escape...and in both cases the rumors were lent additional credence when the men's wives divorced them and cited their alleged less-than-honorable behavior the night the Titanic went down as one of the reasons... Bishop reportedly "fell into the boat" his wife had entered ("accidentally" falling into lifeboats being a scheme more than few men employed in desperate attempts to secure seats), but Bishop and his wife left the Titanic in lifeboat No. 7, a boat that was launched early and underfilled..In 1915, Mrs. Carter's testimony from her divorce case (based on grounds of "cruel and barbarous treatment and indignities to the person") was leaked to the press....When the Titanic struck, my husband came to our stateroom and said, "Get up and dress yourself and the children." I never saw him again until I arrived at the Carpathia at 8 o'clock the next morning.... All he said was that he had had a jolly good breakfast, and that he never thought I would make it....
"No, sir," [Second Officer] Lightoller replied. "No men are allowed in these boats until the women are loaded first." When Mrs. Ryerson led her son Jack to the window, Lightoller called out, "That boy can't go!" Mr. Ryerson indignantly stepped forward: "Of course that boy goes with his mother — he is only thirteen." So they let him pass, Lightoller grumbling, "No more boys."...According to legend, Astor then placed a woman's hat on little Billy's head, claiming over objections, "Now he's a girl and he can go," an act that (real or not) might later have become associated with Billy's father instead. (Other sources maintain that it was Billy Carter's mother who placed a woman's hat atop his head, after an order had been issued that no more boys were to be allowed aboard boat No. 4.)
Only one verified case of an adult male passenger's using an article of women's clothing to secure a place on a lifeboat....Fifth Officer Lowe testified ....when he attempted to transfer passengers from his lifeboat ...Then I asked for volunteers to go with me to the wreck, and it was at this time that I found the Italian. He came aft and had a shawl over his head, and I suppose he had skirts. Anyhow, I pulled the shawl off his face and saw he was a man....The "Italian" ....was actually an Irishman, a 21-year-old Third Class passenger named Daniel Buckley....By some accounts, Buckley sneaked onto a lifeboat by tossing a shawl over his head after an officer brandished his revolver and threatened other men who had clambered aboard the boat and refused to make way for female passengers, but according to Buckley's testimony in the American inquiry, he was already on board the lifeboat when a woman took it upon herself to throw her shawl over his head and camouflage him while other men were being dragged out of the boat....
When the sixth lifeboat was prepared, there was a big crowd of men standing on the deck. And they all jumped in. So I said I would take my chance with them... Then two officers came along and said all of the men could come out. ....they said all the men could get out and let the ladies in. But six men were left in the boat......I was crying. There was a woman in the boat, and she had thrown her shawl over me, and she told me to stay in there. Then they did not see me, and the boat was lowered down into the water, and we rowed away ....The men that were in the boat at first fought, and would not get out, but the officers drew their revolvers, and fired shots over our heads, and then the men got out. When the boat was ready, we were lowered down into the water and rowed away out from the steamer. We were only about 15 minutes out when she sank....
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/titanic-survivors-dress-like-women/
David Mikkelson Jul 19, 2000
Claim: A man sneaked his way onto one of the Titanic's lifeboats by donning women's dress.
Rating: False
...If we imagined a disaster similar to the Titanic occurring today, we would likely picture it as an "every man for himself" free-for-all in which faster and stronger passengers shouldered aside the slow, weak, and elderly to secure places for themselves in the available lifeboats. No such melee took place on the decks of the Titanic, however, even though "women and children first" was not a regulation specified by maritime law....Back in 1912, "women and children first" was a rule men followed primarily because doing so was a social imperative;...."a law of human nature." I.... violating this social rule was worse than breaking the law:.... the man who pushed his way into a lifeboat while women remained on board was an irredeemable coward...
....William T. Sloper ...was publicly identified ...as "the man who got off in woman's clothing." ...left the Titanic in ...the first boat launched, after he was invited to take a seat with motion picture actress Dorothy Gibson...many passengers ....were unwilling to trade the warmth and apparent safety of their berths for a seat in an open boat on the freezing Atlantic in the middle of the night, lifeboat No. 7 was filled to only about a third of its 65-passenger capacity....freely allowed Sloper aboard..... eventually launched with only 28 occupants, so neither Sloper ... would have had to disguise himself as a woman to sneak aboard.......Reporters soon gathered outside his room to press him for a story, but Sloper had already promised an exclusive to the editor of his hometown newspaper. According to legend, a reporter for a New York newspaper felt Sloper was acting a bit too disrespectful towards members of the fourth estate by declining to talk and exacted revenge by writing a story that named Sloper as "the man who got off in woman's clothing." .... he subsequently spent many years living down the reputation he had unfairly gained....
...William Carter and Dickinson Bishop, were also spitefully tagged as having disguised themselves as women to escape...and in both cases the rumors were lent additional credence when the men's wives divorced them and cited their alleged less-than-honorable behavior the night the Titanic went down as one of the reasons... Bishop reportedly "fell into the boat" his wife had entered ("accidentally" falling into lifeboats being a scheme more than few men employed in desperate attempts to secure seats), but Bishop and his wife left the Titanic in lifeboat No. 7, a boat that was launched early and underfilled..In 1915, Mrs. Carter's testimony from her divorce case (based on grounds of "cruel and barbarous treatment and indignities to the person") was leaked to the press....When the Titanic struck, my husband came to our stateroom and said, "Get up and dress yourself and the children." I never saw him again until I arrived at the Carpathia at 8 o'clock the next morning.... All he said was that he had had a jolly good breakfast, and that he never thought I would make it....
"No, sir," [Second Officer] Lightoller replied. "No men are allowed in these boats until the women are loaded first." When Mrs. Ryerson led her son Jack to the window, Lightoller called out, "That boy can't go!" Mr. Ryerson indignantly stepped forward: "Of course that boy goes with his mother — he is only thirteen." So they let him pass, Lightoller grumbling, "No more boys."...According to legend, Astor then placed a woman's hat on little Billy's head, claiming over objections, "Now he's a girl and he can go," an act that (real or not) might later have become associated with Billy's father instead. (Other sources maintain that it was Billy Carter's mother who placed a woman's hat atop his head, after an order had been issued that no more boys were to be allowed aboard boat No. 4.)
Only one verified case of an adult male passenger's using an article of women's clothing to secure a place on a lifeboat....Fifth Officer Lowe testified ....when he attempted to transfer passengers from his lifeboat ...Then I asked for volunteers to go with me to the wreck, and it was at this time that I found the Italian. He came aft and had a shawl over his head, and I suppose he had skirts. Anyhow, I pulled the shawl off his face and saw he was a man....The "Italian" ....was actually an Irishman, a 21-year-old Third Class passenger named Daniel Buckley....By some accounts, Buckley sneaked onto a lifeboat by tossing a shawl over his head after an officer brandished his revolver and threatened other men who had clambered aboard the boat and refused to make way for female passengers, but according to Buckley's testimony in the American inquiry, he was already on board the lifeboat when a woman took it upon herself to throw her shawl over his head and camouflage him while other men were being dragged out of the boat....
When the sixth lifeboat was prepared, there was a big crowd of men standing on the deck. And they all jumped in. So I said I would take my chance with them... Then two officers came along and said all of the men could come out. ....they said all the men could get out and let the ladies in. But six men were left in the boat......I was crying. There was a woman in the boat, and she had thrown her shawl over me, and she told me to stay in there. Then they did not see me, and the boat was lowered down into the water, and we rowed away ....The men that were in the boat at first fought, and would not get out, but the officers drew their revolvers, and fired shots over our heads, and then the men got out. When the boat was ready, we were lowered down into the water and rowed away out from the steamer. We were only about 15 minutes out when she sank....
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/titanic-survivors-dress-like-women/
