Arthur John Priest was born on this day in 1887. He earned the nickname “the unsinkable stoker” after surviving the sinking of four ships, including the Titanic and its sister ship Britannic, as well as living through two ship collisions.
As a stoker, Priest was part of the “black gang” that manually shifted the hundreds of tonnes of coal each day to feed the insatiable boilers of the steamships of the time.
In 1908, Priest was working as a stoker on the passenger liner RMS Asturias when, on its maiden voyage, it was in a collision with another ship. While there was no loss of life, the ship only barely made it back into port.
Priest served as a stoker on RMS Olympic in 1911. The Olympic was a near sister ship to the Titanic and the Britannic. It collided with HMS Hawke in the Solent, tearing two large holes in Olympic’s hull, above and below the waterline, resulting in the flooding of two of her watertight compartments and a twisted propeller shaft. HMS Hawke suffered severe damage to her bow and nearly capsized.
Priest found work on RMS Titanic the following year. Continue reading
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