Commander Charles Herbert Lightoller (30 March 1874 – 8 December 1952) was a British merchant mariner and naval officer who was the second officer on board the ocean liner RMS Titanic during its ill-fated maiden voyage, and was the most senior crewmember to survive the disaster.
During the sinking, and as the officer in charge of loading passengers into lifeboats on the port side, Lightoller strictly enforced the "women and children only" protocol, allowing only female passengers and children onto boats and turning away male passengers and female crewmembers. Lightoller went down with the ship and survived the night balancing on Collapsible B with several others.
Lightoller served as a commanding officer in the Royal Navy during World War I and he was twice decorated for gallantry. During World War II, in retirement, he voluntarily provided his personal yacht, the Sundowner, and sailed her as one of the "little ships" in the Dunkirk evacuation.
Lightoller was born at Yarrow House in Chorley, Lancashire, on 30 March 1874, into a family that had operated cotton-spinning mills in Lancashire since the late 18th century. His mother, Sarah Jane Lightoller (née Widdows), died of scarlet fever shortly after giving birth to him. Two of his older siblings, Richard Ashton and Caroline Mary Lightoller, both also died of scarlet fever in early childhood.
His father, Frederick James Lightoller, was a captain in the British Army at the time of his first marriage. He remarried in 1876 to Margaret Barton, who died childless after five years of marriage. After being widowed again, Frederick allegedly had an affair with the family maid Joyce Gladwin, with whom he fathered a daughter, Janet, in 1883. In 1885, he
emigrated, along with his eldest daughter Jane, to New Zealand when Charles was 10, leaving him in the care of extended family. There he married Joyce in Auckland, and died in 1913.
Though better known by his first name, Lightoller preferred to be called by his middle name "Herbert".
At age 13, not wanting to end up with a factory job, Charles began a four-year apprenticeship on board the barque Primrose Hill. On his second voyage, he set sail with the crew of the Holt Hill. During a storm in the South Atlantic, the ship was forced to put in at Rio de Janeiro. Repairs were made in the midst of a smallpox epidemic and a revolution. Another storm, on 13 November 1889 in the Indian Ocean, caused the ship to run aground on an uninhabited four-and-a-half-square-mile island now called Île Saint-Paul. They were rescued by the Coorong and taken to Adelaide, Australia. Lightoller joined the crew of the clipper ship Duke of Abercorn for his return to England.
Lightoller returned to the Primrose Hill for his third voyage. They arrived in Calcutta, India, where he passed his second mate's certificate. The cargo of coal caught fire while he was serving as third mate on board the windjammer Knight of St. Michael, and for his successful efforts in fighting the fire and saving the ship, Lightoller was promoted to second mate.
In 1895, at age 21 and a veteran of the dangers at sea, he obtained his mate's ticket and left sailing ships for steamships. After three years of service in Elder Dempster's African Royal Mail Service on the West African coast, he nearly died from a heavy bout of malaria.
Lightoller went to the Yukon in 1898 to prospect for gold in the Klondike Gold Rush. Failing at this, he then became a cowboy in Alberta, Canada. To return home, he became a hobo, riding the rails back across Canada. He earned his passage back to England by working as a cattle wrangler on a cattle boat and arrived home penniless in 1899.
While on the SS Medic, on a voyage from Britain to South Africa and Australia in October 1900, Lightoller was reprimanded for a prank he and some shipmates played on the citizens of Sydney at Fort Denison in Sydney Harbour. After the Medic dropped anchor in Neutral Bay, the group rowed to the fort where hoisted a makeshift Boer flag on the lightning conductor and fired a harmless wad of cotton waste from one of the 8-inch cannons, in an attempt to fool locals into believing a Boer raiding party was attacking Sydney. The blast shattered a few of the fort's windows but caused no other damage. Lightoller was never apprehended but confessed to his company's superiors and related the whole story in an autobiography.
In 1903 he found himself in Sydney again, having been transferred to the SS Suevic—possibly as punishment for another indiscretion. During the voyage, he met Sylvia Hawley-Wilson, a returning Australian whom he married in St James' Church, Sydney and took back to England on the return passage.
He later joined the RMS Majestic under the command of Captain Edward J. Smith in the Atlantic. From there, he was promoted to third officer on the RMS Oceanic, the flagship of the White Star Line. He returned to the Majestic as first mate and then transferred back to the Oceanic in the same position. In March 1911, while serving as first officer on the Oceanic, the ship's foremast was struck by lightning in a gale; Lightoller was standing on the bridge at the time, and narrowly avoided being seriously injured by falling splinters. While on the ship, with the bridge decking wet and the ship rolling, he liked to amuse himself "by trying to slide from one side of the bridge to the other, without touching anything".
On 20 March 1912, Lightoller boarded the RMS Titanic in Belfast, as first officer for the sea trials. Lightoller would later state, "I was thoroughly familiar with pretty well every type of ship afloat, from a battleship and a barge, but it took me fourteen days before I could with confidence find my way from one part of that ship to another by the shortest route." Captain Smith gave the post of chief officer to Henry Wilde of the Olympic, demoting the original appointee William Murdoch to first officer and Lightoller to second officer. The original second officer, David Blair, was excluded from the voyage altogether, while the roster of junior officers remained unchanged. When the ship departed Southampton, Lightoller was at his departure station in the crow's nest.
At sea, Lightoller had the 6:00–10:00 watch every morning and night. On 14 April 1912, Lightoller and some of the other officers also discussed the subject of the ship's top speed; they were "interested" in seeing what the ship could do. Murdoch had the 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. watch on the bridge. However, the officers' lunch was served at 12:30. Lightoller returned to the bridge at that time to relieve Murdoch and let him grab a quick bite to eat. Captain Smith came on to the bridge, and gave him an ice warning message; this was the first that Lightoller recalled hearing anything about icebergs ahead of the ship. When Murdoch returned from his lunch, Lightoller mentioned that Captain Smith had given him a message regarding ice. Murdoch showed no overt surprise, but Lightoller was under the impression that the subject was new to the First Officer, just as it had been to him. Lightoller headed off to get lunch for himself.
At 6:00, Lightoller became officer of the watch, relieving Wilde. Murdoch returned at 7:05 p.m., and took the watch for a half-hour so that Lightoller could have his own dinner. Lightoller returned from dinner to resume his watch. Murdoch remarked to him that the temperature had dropped another four degrees. Murdoch departed the bridge. At 9:00, Captain Smith conferred with Lightoller on the bridge, and they agreed that they should be able to see an iceberg with plenty of time to avoid it. Smith left the bridge, saying, "If it becomes at all doubtful, let me know...". Lightoller asked Moody to use the telephone to call up the lookouts in the Crow's Nest; he wanted to have them "keep a sharp lookout for ice, particularly small ice and growlers", and to "pass that word on until daylight", as each successive shift took its turn on duty. Moody picked up the phone to the Nest in the wheelhouse and Lightoller overheard him say, "Keep a sharp look out for ice, particularly small ice.", before hanging up. Lightoller noted that Moody's order differed somewhat from the wording that he had specified, as Moody had not mentioned "growlers". He thought the detail was important enough to have Moody call the lookouts again, and to clarify that they should keep a sharp lookout for "small ice and growlers". Moody carried the order out, ringing the crow's nest a second time and conveying the order more precisely.