On 10 April 1912, Richard Henry Rouse boarded RMS Titanic at Southampton. He was not travelling for luxury or adventure. He was going ahead of his family to build them a new life in America.
Richard was born at Trottiscliffe in Kent in 1857. By adulthood he was working in the brickfields around Milton and Sittingbourne.
In 1891, aged thirty-four, he married widow Charity Emily Anderson. Charity already had a daughter, Harriett Alice, and Richard and Charity later had a daughter of their own, Gladys Nancy, born in 1903.
By 1912 Harriett had emigrated with her family to Ohio. Richard, Charity and Gladys decided to follow.
The plan was simple and full of hope: Richard would travel first, find work and secure a home. Charity and Gladys would then cross the Atlantic to join him.
Richard bought a third-class ticket on Titanic and boarded at Southampton.
He never reached America. Titanic struck an iceberg on the night of 14 April and sank in the early hours of 15 April 1912. Richard was among those who died and his body was never identified among those recovered.
Yet the family's journey did not end there. Two months later, Charity and Gladys crossed the Atlantic without him and began their new life in Ohio.
Behind the famous ship, the grand staircase and the statistics were ordinary families with plans for tomorrow. Richard Henry Rouse's story is one of them - and it links Sittingbourne directly to Titanic.
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