Thomas Byles in ministry and his final hours on board the RMS Titanic. Thomas Byles Thomas Roussel Davids Byles (26 February 1870 – 15 April 1912) was an English Catholic priest who was a passenger aboard the "RMS Titanic" on its maiden voyage when it sank after striking an iceberg during the night of 15 April 1912. He was reported as being amidst the throng of trapped passengers on the ship's rear deck in its final moments of descent, audibly praying. Thomas Byles was born Roussel Davids Byles in Leeds, Yorkshire, the eldest of seven children of the Reverend Alfred Holden Byles,
RMS Titanic in popular culture Ismay and John Jacob Astor, reimagined as an English Lord, for control of the White Star Line. An equally fictitious young German First Officer, Petersen, warns against Ismay's reckless pursuit of the Blue Riband, calling "Titanic" a ship "run not by sailors, but by stock speculators". His warnings fall on deaf ears and the ship hits an iceberg. Several aspects of the plot are reflected in James Cameron's 1997 "Titanic": a girl rejects her parents' wishes to pursue the man she loves, there is a wild dancing scene in steerage and a man imprisoned in the ship's flooding prison is