SINKING OF TITANIC

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 94, 15 January 1935, Page 3

SINKING OF TITANIC

* Relief Pension Still Drawn Dominion Special Service —By Air Mail. London, December 22. It lias just beeu revealed that 22 years after the tragic sinking of the Titanic on her maiden voyage to America, 276 persons are still drawing pensions in respect of that disaster. The Titanic, at that time the largest ship afloat, struck an. iceberg in the Atlantic on April 15, 1912, and 1513 people were drowned. A fund was at once started for the relief of the relatives and dependants. The sum of £415,212 was collected, and the number of beneficiaries immediately after the tragedy was 2296. Much of the early relief was administered in block payments, and then a permanent scheme of periodic allowances was started. A large number of the beneficiaries were children or old people, and over the following 22 years many of them have been removed from the fund — the old people have died and the children grown up. Now there are 276 people receiving allowances, chiefly middleaged women who were widowed in youth by the disaster. Between £15,000 and £20,000 is paid out each year at present, 'but the fund is periodically revalued, and adjustments are made. Its present value is assessed at £308,669. Theoretically, the aim of the administrators is that the last beneficiary shall receive the last money available on her death-bed. The fund will cover, if necessary, another 50 years.