Family legend has it that my great Grandfather John Alfred Cliff was a 1st cousin to William Stead noted British journalist who perished on the Titanic. I have tired to contact his descendants but to no avail. John M. Grove

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i have only just found out i may be related to william thomas stead distantly through my grandmother alice stead aunty ada and edward great grandfather who lived in ramsgate kent 1800s iam trying to create a family tree. they lived in plains of waterloo.

jacqueline amy louisa rogers

About William Thomas Stead:

William Thomas Stead was an influential writer in Britain. He wrote many things that helped change the government in Britain. Some time before the Titanic, he wrote a piece for the Pall Mall Gazette titled ‘How the Mail Steamer Went Down in Mid-Atlantic, by a Survivor’. It tells of an RMS(Royal Mail Service) Ship that collides with another ship and kills many – because of insufficient lifeboats. As a sidenote, he added ‘This is exactly what might take place, and what will take place if the liners are sent to the sea short of boats.’ A few years later, he wrote a similar story, but with a happy ending. These “psychic” powers are slightly creepy, but what makes the whole thing a weird coincidence is that William Thomas Stead died on the Titanic.