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For 100 years no one knew whether Robert Hichens, the notorious Cornishman who “sank the Titanic”, was buried at sea or on land.

His final resting place remained a mystery until Robert’s great granddaughter made it her mission to find his grave.

Sally Nilsson’s search proved a success and just before Christmas a special memorial marked the resting place of the Newlyn sailor, who also served time for attempted murder.

Sally and other family members believe history has painted an unfair picture of Robert, who was branded a coward and bully.

In charge of Titanic’s Lifeboat Six, then aged 30, he was accused of refusing to go back to rescue survivors from the water.

His argument with American socialite Margaret ‘Molly’ Brown – who threatened to throw him overboard – was later depicted in the musical The Unsinkable Molly Brown.

The events of that night put an end to his promising career as a sailor with the White Star Line and led to him spiralling into depression and drunkenness.

Life then took an even darker turn when he shot a man in the head who had given him a loan. He was later jailed for attempted murder in Torquay.

Born in 1882, Robert was one of ten children, the second son of Philip Hichens and Rebecca Wood, and grew up in St Peter’s Square in Newlyn. The site of his childhood home is now a car park.

Life was difficult and money and food were scarce. At the turn of the century, with fish stocks depleted, fathers encouraged their sons to find work other than fishing and, at 19, Robert was urged by Philip to join the Royal Naval Reserve, which offered a government training programme.

The move served him well; he completed his course and joined the merchant service.

In 1906, he married Florence Mortimore, who he had met in Torquay while serving aboard the yacht Ariano. Then came a move to Southampton, by which time Robert was the father of two daughters.

Times were hard, with coal strikes starving sailors of work, but with his unblemished record Robert was able to get a berth on the Titanic, the second member of the deck crew to sign up.

He spent four days aboard so he could get to know her intimately before she sailed.

Robert was at the wheel of the Titanic the very moment the ship fatally struck an iceberg during her maiden voyage on April 15, 1912. The sinking claimed more than 1,500 lives.

Following the disaster, Robert was kept under virtual house arrest while he participated in American and British inquiries. However, supposedly enticed by the offer of a lifelong job and good pay in exchange for his silence, and fearing he might not be able to find other work, he remained a White Star Line employee.

In the immediate aftermath, he was sent to South Africa – as far away from England as possible and the other side of the world from his family.

He returned to England in 1914, at the outbreak of the First World War, and was quartered on HMS Victory in Portsmouth, but invalided out with neurasthenia, a nervous condition similar to post-traumatic stress disorder.

Prone to fatigue, anxiety attacks, headaches and black moods, the condition would have a major effect on his life over the next 20 years.

He would wake with nightmares and, although there is no account of his feelings about the Titanic disaster, it’s safe to assume the memory haunted him for the rest of his life.

However, Robert continued his work as a quartermaster, and in the 1920s moved to Torquay with his family where he bought a small pleasure boat, the Queen Mary.

He can hardly have known the purchase would set in train a sequence of events which would leave him homeless, separated from his wife and family and in jail, and also led him to make two attempts to end his own life.

To buy the boat, Robert had taken out two loans with a man named Harry Henley, who then set about making Robert’s life a misery, constantly threatening him to demand payment.

As he fended off Henley’s demands, the other aspects of Robert’s life were beginning to unravel, all taking their toll on his mental state.

The Great Depression had starved him of customers and, therefore, the income from his boat.

He turned to drink to ease the pain, but this had a devastating effect on his marriage, and the final straw came when the family was evicted for rent arrears. Florence left him and returned to Southampton with the children, by now six in number.

Homeless, alone, without work and still crippled by neurasthenia, Robert began to tramp the country looking for a job, while his drinking grew progressively worse.

He had hit rock bottom and, blaming Henley for the mess he was in, purchased a silver revolver and returned to Torquay where he shot him in the head, though the bullet did not strike bone and caused only superficial wounds.

Henley was able to run for the police and as they arrived Robert tried to shoot himself in the head, but only injured his nose, according to a contemporary newspaper report.

A note was found on him indicating that he intended to kill Henley and then himself; he attempted suicide a second time while in custody by cutting his wrists, but again survived.

Convicted of attempted murder, he was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment, the judge sympathetically handing him a reduced sentence.

While in Parkhurst Prison on the Isle of Wight he managed to make up with Florence, moving into the family home on his release. But tragedy struck yet again when she was diagnosed with a brain tumour. Robert nursed her until she was too sick to remain at home and, shortly after entering a nursing home in Southampton, she died.

With the Second World War now in its second year and his wife gone, Robert could not bear to stay in Southampton and took a job as third officer of a cargo ship named the English Trader.

She ferried goods between Africa and Britain, often with no naval escort and under heavy attack from enemy aircraft.

By this time he had heart problems and confided in a shipmate that he didn’t want to live and would never see England again.

On September 23, 1940, the ship was moored at Aberdeen when Robert died of heart failure in his cabin, in the presence of the captain and the leading steward.

His niece Barbara Clarke said in 2008: “He was publicly shamed and humiliated and racked with guilt. It wasn’t fair – he was a kind and gentle man.”

His great granddaughter Sally Nilsson was first told about Robert – Banjo Bob – by her grandfather when she was 14. As the years went by she became fascinated by his legend and after years of work and research wrote The Man Who Sank Titanic: The Troubled Life Of Quartermaster Robert Hichens, in an attempt to set the record straight.

“Robert was a very misunderstood man,” said Sally, whose grandmother Phyllis-May was known as ‘the Titanic baby’.

“He showed loyalty to his captain during the inquests and cared for his family, which he loved very much.

“The events of that night can never be 100% clear, none of the lifeboats had compasses and there was no moon. Only some of the boats had lamps: merely candles in lanterns, giving a pathetic glow.

“The lights of Titanic had gone and they were thrown into total darkness apart from the stars, plus Robert’s grandfather Phillip had drowned years before, so he was right to feel trepidation.”

She added: “Robert has been a divisive character over time. I found a different side of him which I grew to love. I poured over the Titanic inquiries and came to the conclusion that he was following direct orders from his captain and second officer.

“He did his best to get the passengers in his lifeboat to safety under horrific circumstances.

“He was close to his faith and the letters he wrote while in jail told of a man who was sensitive, loyal and loving.”

However, when she finished writing her book in 2010, she had one question remaining. What happened to Robert’s body?

Knowing that he had died on the English Trader which was moored outside Aberdeen harbour in September 1940, Sally wrote to and visited the area’s libraries and council offices, hospitals and mortuaries; some more than once.

She said: “A lovely chap called Ian Burnett from Aberdeen Council was getting tired of hearing from me but he was the closest link I had so I called him again and practically pleaded with him to look one more time. Two hours later the phone rang. It was Ian. ‘You’re not going to believe this Sally,’ he said. ‘We’ve found him. We’ve found Robert Hichens’."

The ‘man who sank the Titanic’ was buried in a grave at Trinity Cemetery, Aberdeen, with two other sailors, only one of whom had a headstone. Robert’s last resting place was unmarked.

Sally said of her first visit: “I stood there in the wind and rain and shed a tear or two but hoped that if Robert was looking up or down he would be happy that a different tale had been told which would finally give him some peace.”

As the years went by Sally dreamed of giving Robert a proper headstone but couldn’t afford it.

However, the money was eventually found with help from the Swiss Titanic Society, and just before Christmas a special memorial service was held when Robert’s gravestone – which he shares with one of the other sailors in the same plot – was unveiled.

“It has taken 107 years for Robert to finally get a headstone which he absolutely deserves,” added his great granddaughter.