RMS Empress of Britain (1905) transatlantic traffic, the ship was sometimes held in quarantine if a communicative disease was discovered amongst the passengers. Similarly, it would have been expected, for example, that the ship would notify authorities in Halifax that one passenger had died from pneumonia en route to Canada from Europe. Less than two weeks after disaster struck the RMS "Titanic" in the North Atlantic, "Empress of Britain" also struck an iceberg on 26 April 1912; but the reported damage was only slight. On 27 July 1912, "Empress of Britain" rammed and sank the British collier SS "Helvetia" in fog off Cape Magdelene in
Titanic Musicians' Memorial hit an iceberg and began to sink, Hartley and his fellow band members assembled in the first class lounge and started playing music to help keep the passengers calm. They later moved to the forward half of the boat deck, where they continued to play as the crew loaded the lifeboats. Many of the survivors said that the band continued to play until the very end. The inscription 'Nearer, My God, to Thee' has an association with the RMS "Titanic" as it was reported by one passenger that the ship's band played the hymn as the "Titanic" sank. However, the