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Map showing location of Eastbourne in the United Kingdom
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Cellist John Wesley Woodward is remembered Eastbourne where he had been a member of the Municipal, the Von Leer, and the Duke of Devonshire's Orchestras.

Titanic Remembered - remembrance sites in the United Kingdom and Ireland
Eastbourne, East Sussex

The ship's band were divided into two ensembles, a five-piece orchestra and a trio string section. There were two pianists as part of the band, Percy Cornelius Taylor and Theodore Brailey and they were divided between the two ensemble. The five-piece orchestra was led by Wallace Hartley, who played the violin, accompanied by violinist John Law Hume, cellist John Wesley Woodward, and bassist John Frederick Clarke. They played in the first-class dining saloon and first-class reception room. The remaining trio of the orchestra played on B-deck, in the reception room. This adjoined the smaller William and Mary-style aft-grand-staircase which featured ornate wrought ironwork balustrades in a French Louis XIV style. Accompanying the pianist were cellist Roger Bricoux, and George Krins.

John Wesley Woodward resided just north of Oxford, in Windmill Road, Headington and was a cellist aboard the Titanic. Mr Woodward had a wealth of experience, previously serving the Duke of Devonshire's Orchestra, the Eastbourne Municipal Orchestra and Eastbourne Grand Hotel Orchestra. As with the other musicians, John Woodward died in the disaster. On 24th October 1914 a bronze tablet paying "tribute to the self-sacrifice and devotion of John Wesley Woodward...[and]...the hero musicians of the ship's band" was unveiled on the sea-front. The ceremony was performed by the celebrated opera singer Clara Butt. The inscription reads "This tablet is erected as a tribute to the self-sacrifice and devotion of John Wesley Woodward. (Formerly a member of the Eastbourne Municipal Orchestra, the Duke of Devonshire's Orchestra and the Grand Hotel Orchestra), who with others of the hero-musicians of the ship's band, perished in the Atlantic through the sinking of the White Star Liner "Titanic" on April 15th 1912. "Faithful unto death"."


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