17:33 24 November 2015
A secret list containing the names of two million Freemasons has revealed that several people in the organisation were involved in the investigation of the Titanic tragedy.
The archives, which were published by a geneology site Ancestry, confirmed that the list involved the judge who oversaw the inquiry, its leading investigators, and the chairman of the ship's parent company.
Diane Clements, director of the Library and Museum of Freemasonry, said: “The records demonstrate the extensive involvement which freemasons have had in British society.”
Following the inquiry, the British Board of Trade was exonerated despite being held responsible for the lack of lifeboats on the vessel in a separate US Senate inquiry.
Freemasons included in the list are Professor John Harvard Biles and Edward Chaston, two of the inquiry’s five expert assessors, as well as Lord Pirrie, chairman of the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast where the Titanic was built and the director of the White Star Line’s parent company.
Nic Compton, a Titanic expert and author of Titanic on Trial said: “The Titanic inquiry in Britain was branded a ‘whitewash’ because it exonerated most of those involved.”