West Berkshire's Titanic victims remembered 100 years on

The watch is believed to have stopped the moment Mr Sedunary hit the water and was later found on his body by the crew of one of two cable ships sent with the grim task of recovering the remains of those who died.
Mr Sedunary, aged 25 when he died, had been a crew member on the Olympic ocean liner, the older sister to the ill-fated Titanic and Britannic, and received monthly wages of £5.
Eight months later his son Sidney Sedunary junior was born in December 1912 in Southampton and went on to write a modestly published book on the Titanic, before moving to Berkshire to live in Tilehurst later in his life.
He died in 2010 aged 97 and is buried in Caversham, Reading, and his father’s watch, which was sent to his mother who was pregnant with him at the time of her husband’s death, is now on display in the Seacity Museum in Southampton, which this week hosted a special centenary exhibition in memory of the great disaster.
In 1912 there were no state benefits and a relief fund was set up with donations from the public to support the dependants of those who died.
Mr Sedunary’s widow received a weekly payment from the relief fund of 13 shillings a week, which translates to around £55 per week today.
Also aboard the ship, along with his wife as second class passengers - £26 a ticket - was the Rev. Earnest Courtenay Carter, who was born in Compton in 1858. He entered priesthood and between 1889 and 1896 he was curate of Chieveley.
The day before the ship sank Mr Carter presided over a hymn service for about a hundred passengers in the second class dining saloon. Among the hymns sung were Eternal Father, Strong to Save, On the Resurrection Morning, There is a Green Hill Far Away, and Now the Day is Over.
Both Mr Carter and his wife died in the sinking, their bodies, if recovered, were never identified.
The Newbury Weekly News reported on the disaster on Thursday, April 18, with the headline ‘Appalling disaster to the Titanic’.
Early reports had filtered through that the majority of passengers had been saved, however evidence to the contrary soon emerged and the newspaper was reporting on the greatest peace-time maritime disaster on record.
The exhaustive coverage provided in the pages of the NWN touched on telegrams, wireless messages, and letters sent and published in the newspapers of the day.
Of the few good news stories to emerge, an assistant of Walker’s Stores, Newbury, named Hartnell, had a brother who was a steward on board the ship, and despite initial reports of him being unaccounted for was later reported among the survivors.
As the days and weeks wore on the terrible fate of those connected to West Berkshire in the tragedy were revealed, and the mourning process began.