White Star Heritage Titanic Exhibition Leeds: unmissable dive into legend of world's most famous ship

Father Thomas Byles was en-route to attend his younger brother William's wedding in America when the world's then largest moving object struck an iceberg in the mid-Atlantic, on the night of April 14/15, 1912.

What happened next has become legend, but Byles’ selfless role is less well known. Though the 42-year-old is believed to have been offered a place in a lifeboat, he made no attempt to escape the doomed liner.

Instead, he heard confessions, recited the rosary and gave absolution to hundreds of passengers trapped on Titanic's stern as the gigantic liner slipped below the waves. His body was never recovered.

Byles’ selfless heroism deserves to be remembered and is, in an exhibition now being staged in the city of his birth. The White Star Heritage Titanic Exhibition, open at the Royal Armouries’ New Dock Hall until April 20, is an unmissable experience.

The epic tragedy has its own community of Titanic nerds, obsessed with every aspect of the ship's brief career and spectacular demise and they will enjoy the exhibit immensely, but it is aimed at least as much at those with only a passing knowledge.

A stunning scale model of the Belfast-built ship greets visitors at the reception desk, where they are handed a boarding card for a real passenger or crew member on the ill-starred voyage. At the end of the tour, the fate of all 2,240 is revealed.

After a short introductory film, visitors can take as long as they like to study the artifacts on show. This writer spent around two and a half hours - including a short virtual reality presentation, which costs an additional fee - and every second was fascinating.

Thousands of books, newspaper and magazine articles, documentaries and films have been dedicated to Titanic’s history over the past century or so and there seems to be a new peak of interest every few years, for example when the wreck was discovered in the 1980s, around the release of James Cameron’s blockbuster 1997 movie and the recent Titan mini-sub tragedy.

So there may not be a great deal of new information here, but from start to finish, the exhibition is utterly compelling, beautifully presented and rather moving. Rarely-seen artifacts include mementoes taken from the ship before it set sail and items salvaged from the sea floor.

That in itself is a controversial subject, with many Titanic enthusiasts believing the wreck, the final resting place of 1,500 souls, should be left alone. The sentiment is difficult to argue with, but White Star Heritage’s exhibition is respectfully done and puts the human cost of the catastrophe front and centre.

Byles is just one of landlocked Leeds’ Titanic connections. Among the most famous participants on that night to remember was violinist Wallace Hartley, leader of the band which famously played as the ship went down.

Hartley, a Lancastrian, lived for a while in Dewsbury and was a member of a string quartet at Collinson's cafe on King Edward Street, in Leeds' Victorian Quarter. The building is now the Cat and Craft restaurant and bar.

Byles and Hartley were heroes, but Titanic also had its villains. One of the wealthiest passengers was Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon, who escaped the liner on lifeboat number one.

At a time when the rule was ‘women and children first’ - and some ship’s officers interpreted first as ‘only’ - Duff-Gordon survived while many female passengers and youngsters went down with the ship.

One of only 12 passengers and seamen in a lifeboat with a capacity of 40, he later faced claims, which he denied, of bribing the crew to row clear. His wife, fashion designer Lady Lucy Duff-Gordon, lived in Leeds in the 1890s.

Many men, of course, did step back from the boats. On the whole, male passengers in first and second class behaved with dignity and courage, as did most of the crew. Those in steerage, as third class was known, didn’t have the option. By the time most reached the upper decks, the lifeboats were long gone.

Around 20 per cent of male passengers in first class survived the disaster and the overall survival rate for those on the most expensive tickets was roughly six in 10. In second class, 58 per cent died and the casualty rate for steerage was an horrific 76 per cent. Letters written on board and posted at the final port of call provide a real personal touch, among the patches of carpet, surviving woodwork and lumps of coal and rust taken from the wreck.

Though Titanic’s first class accommodation was the height of luxury, she was primarily an emigrant ship and, in the final reckoning, rich and poor died side by side. Perhaps that is what makes the Titanic story so compelling. Tickets cost £21.99 for visitors aged 15 and over, £9.99 for children six-14 and free for under-sixes.