William Thomas Stead. William Thomas Stead, well known journalist, was born in Manse, Embleton, Northumberland on 5 July 1849. Stead boarded the RMS Titanic for a visit to the USA to take part in a peace congress at Carnegie Hall at the request of William Howard Taft. After the ship struck the iceberg, Stead helped several women and children into the lifeboats. After all the boats had gone, Stead went into the 1st Class Smoking Room, where he was last seen sitting in a leather chair and reading a book. Curiously, on 22 March 1886 Stead had published an article entitled 'How the Mail Steamer Went Down in Mid-Atlantic, by a Survivor'. In the story an unnamed steamer collides with another ship and due to a shortage of lifeboats there is a large loss of life. Stead wrote 'This is exactly what might take place and will take place if liners are sent to sea short of boats. - Ed'. He also published a story in 1892 called 'From the Old World to the New' in which a White Star Liner, the Majestic, rescues survivors of another ship that collided with an iceberg. Titanic was built by Harland & Wolff in Belfast Ireland during 1910 - 1911, and sank on 15th April, 1912, after striking an iceberg off the coast of New Foundland during her maiden voyage from Southampton, England to New York, USA, with the loss of 1,522 passengers and crew.