Henry T Wilde

In 1911 he became Chief Officer of the Olympic and was aboard that vessel, under the command of Captain Edward John Smith, when she was in collision with H.M.S. Hawke on 20 September 1911. In 1912 Henry Tingle Wilde was living at 25 Grey Road, Walton, Liverpool. His wife had died on 24 December 1910 and their twin sons died in infancy, the same month. Some sources indicate that they died from Scarlet Fever. Wilde had four surviving children: Jane, Harry, Arnold and Nancy and a sister Mrs Williams (née Wilde). In April 1912 Wilde may have been expecting to remain as Chief Officer on the Olympic under her new skipper Captain Herbert James Haddock but instead he was posted to Southampton to await orders. On 3 April 1912 the Olympic sailed out of Southampton; although it was Haddock's first command of a vessel as large as the Olympic he had been deprived of his Chief Officer (Wilde), his First Officer William Murdoch, Chief Engineer Joseph Bell, Chief Surgeon William O'Loughlin and Chief Purser Herbert McElroy as well as a great number of less senior crew.It seems likely that Wilde was originally posted by the company's marine superintendent for his own command, probably one of White Star's smaller ships; William Murdoch, who was less senior that Wilde, had been assigned as Chief Officer of the company's newest ship, the Titanic so Wilde might reasonably expected a command of his own or to have remained on the Olympic to help Haddock get used to the new ship. That Wilde came in at the last minute as Chief causing the other officer's to move down and in one case out (Second Officer David Blair) may have been done at the request of Captain Smith so that he might have both Wilde and Murdoch occupying the same posts aboard Titanic that they had held aboard Olympic - Chief and First, respectively. Others have suggested that the order came from the company headquarters. Whatever led to the change it proved to be a reckless policy; a few months later the Olympic