Francis Browne: The Jesuit priest who captured the last photos of the Titanic afloat

More than a century after it sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, the Titanic remains the most studied and discussed ship in history.

However, even the biggest Titanic fans might not know that what was likely the last photo taken of the ship on the surface was captured by a Jesuit priest who was a prolific photographer.

Father Francis Browne was born in Ireland in 1880. He studied at the Jesuit Institute of Theology and Philosophy at Milltown, and was ordained in 1915 by the Bishop of Cloyne, Bishop Robert Browne, his uncle, by whom he had been raised since childhood after the early deaths of his mother and father.

Bishop Browne provided the young Browne with his first camera, and he would become a celebrated photographer, with a portfolio that included a collection of photographs from the First World War in which he served as chaplain. During that conflict, Browne suffered serious injuries from a gas attack and was awarded the Military Cross for his efforts.

However, arguably his most famous contributions to world photography are his photographs of the Titanic, among the few that captured life aboard the short-lived liner before its sinking.

in his book Father Browne’s Titanic Album: A Passenger’s Photographs and Personal Memoir (Father Browne’s Titanic Album: Photographs and Personal Memoirs of a Passenger), Jesuit priest EE O’Donnell writes that Browne ended up on the Titanic after Bishop Browne gave his nephew “the trip of a lifetime” in the form of a two-day cruise on the Titanic.

The Jesuit priest sailed from Southampton, England, to Queenstown, Ireland, where he fortuitously disembarked before the rest of the ship’s fateful voyage.

However, Browne’s brush with death was even closer than it seemed: while on the ship, he befriended a wealthy American couple who offered to buy him a ticket for the rest of the trip to the United States.

The priest sent a telegram to his Jesuit superior asking for permission. In Queenstown, the priest received a response saying: “GET OFF THAT BOAT.” Browne would have kept the message for the rest of his life.

It was upon disembarking in Queenstown that the priest captured what were probably the last photos of the ship above the water’s surface. (Another passenger and fellow photographer, Kate Odell, also disembarked at the same time and took similar photos of the ship as it sailed away.)

In addition to the haunting final images of the Titanic, Browne took numerous photos of life aboard the ill-fated liner, including the last known images of many of the crew members, such as Captain Edward Smith.

The priest also captured the only known photograph of the Titanic’s radio room, from which the ship’s wireless operators transmitted desperate SOS messages on the night of April 14-15, until just minutes before the ship sank.

In his story, O’Donnell said the “most newsworthy fact” about Browne is not his presence on the historic liner, but that he is now recognized as “one of the world’s greatest photographers of all time,” with a portfolio of almost 42,000 images.

His collection of Titanic photographs, O’Donnell noted, is not only of interest because of its historical rarity, but also because it represents “the earliest work by the hand of a man who became a master of the art of photography.”

Upon his death in 1960, Browne was hailed as a “brave and kind man” who “had a great influence for good,” loved by his Catholic and Protestant friends alike.

Reflecting on the Titanic tragedy, Browne himself wrote of learning of the catastrophic sinking, the news of which was “whispered at first, then contradicted, but finally shouted out loud in all its horror of detail by the myriad-throated press.”

In Ireland, meanwhile, “we did not forget those whom we had seen failing in all the joy of hope and confidence,” he wrote, “for we met in the great cathedral to pray for those who were gone, and for those upon whom the hand of pain had fallen so heavily.”

Translated and adapted by the ACI Prensa team. Originally published in CNA.