The Sussex sailor who survived the Titanic disaster
William Clifford Weller, who was born in Littlehampton in 1881, was rescued from the sinking ship on the first lifeboat lowered into the water, on April 15, 1912.
The youngest of seven children, he grew up in Sussex, and appeared on the 1891 census as a schoolboy living in Parkstone Villas, Newhaven.
Weller joined the Royal Navy in January 1899 before moving into the merchant service.
By 1911, he was visiting North Mundham, near Chichester, where he met his future wife, Susanna Kete Beeden.
Weller signed on to the Titanic on April 6, 1912, earning around £5 a month.
After surviving the sinking on lifeboat 7, which left the ship at 12.45am, he was brought back to Britain aboard the Lapland.
Weller received a summons to testify at the British inquiry into the disaster but was never called to the stand.
He previously also worked on the Titanic's sister ship, Olympic, and was on the vessel when it collided with HMS Hawke in September 1911.
Following that crash, Weller unsuccessfully sued the White Star Line for a full month's wages, after the company stopped his pay and offered compensation for just three days.
He continued working at sea into the 1920s.
Weller later contracted tuberculosis and died at his Southampton home on May 1, 1954, aged 72.
The sinking of the Titanic, which was the largest ship in the world at the time, saw an estimated 1,500 people die.
At the time of the disaster, the ship was making its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York.
