The loss of the Titanic on 15th April 1912 led to
some unexpected consequences. One person who felt the effects very deeply was
Kate Hume, who was the sister of one of the victims.
Jock Hume
This victim was Jock Hume, who was a member of the
five-piece string band led by Wallace Hartley. The band’s function was to
entertain first-class passengers during evening dinner and on other occasions.
There was also a string and piano trio on board, and the two groups joined
forces on the night of the sinking to play while passengers assembled in the
first-class lounge before they were escorted to the lifeboats.
The abiding legend is that Jock Hume and his colleagues
played the hymn tune “Nearer My God to Thee” as their last piece, before
abandoning their instruments (or strapping them to their bodies) and jumping
into the sea as the ship went down, knowing that they stood no chance of
survival. Jock Hume’s body was later recovered and buried in Halifax, Nova
Scotia.
Kate Hume’s reaction
Kate, who was aged 15 and living at the family home in
Dumfries, Scotland, had hero-worshipped Jock and took the loss particularly
badly. She needed a continuing “comfort blanket” to replace the sympathy and
condolences from friends and neighbours that, inevitably enough, became less
noticeable as time passed.
Kate’s opportunity came in 1914, when World War I was
declared.
One immediate consequence of the declaration of war was a
wave of ant-German sentiment that swept the country. Everything that was
actually (or believed to be) German was condemned out of hand, even to the
extent of stones being thrown at dachshund dogs. The royal family changed its
name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor, which it holds to this day.
Stories of German atrocities being visited on Britons were
meat and drink to the British public, who used them to feed their patriotic
fervour. In September 1914 Kate Hume decided to add another story to the list.
She therefore wrote to her local newspaper, the Dumfries
Standard, to say that her sister Grace (aged 22) had written to her from
Belgium, which was under German occupation. According to Kate, Grace was
working there as a nurse. Grace’s supposed letter contained the words:
“This is to say goodbye. Have not long to live. The hospital
set on fire. Germans cruel. A man here has had his head cut off. My breast
taken away.”
This caused a sensation in Dumfries, as yet another example
of the evil that must be fought against. However, when the news reached a young
lady in Huddersfield, Yorkshire, the sensation was very different. This was
Grace Hume, who had never been anywhere near Belgium and certainly had not
written such a letter to her younger sister Kate.
The trial and subsequent life of Kate Hume
When the truth came out, Kate was arrested and charged with
forgery. She was tried in Edinburgh, where she admitted what she had done. She
stated in court:
“I cannot say what made me do it, except the cruelties which
the Germans were committing. I was seeing and imagining the things I wrote.”
Although she was found guilty, the judge sympathised with
her state of mind and ordered her immediate release. She later went into
domestic service and married a man named Thomas Terbit, with whom she had five
children. She died in 1947 at the age of 50.
Kate Hume was diagnosed at the time of her trial as
suffering from “hysteria”, although these days she would be regarded as having a
form of post-traumatic stress disorder.
At all events, it was an unfortunate late consequence of the tragedy
that had occurred in April 1912 when an iceberg took the life of Kate Hume’s
brother.
© John Welford
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