Colne, a former mill town in Lancashire, is a rum place. As a rum place, it has form. On his several visits there, John Wesley always met opposition, sometimes violent. On one of his visits, one of his helpers was thrown to his death from a bridge.But Methodism prevailed. At one time the town boasted the best part of a dozen Methodist chapels.
Wallace Hartley, born in 1878, went to the Methodist day school and sang in the choir at Bethel Independent Methodist Chapel, where his father, Albion Hartley, was choirmaster and Sunday school superintendent. Albion is said to have introduced the hymn Nearer My God to Thee to the congregation. Young Wallace learned the violin from a member of the congregation.
When the Titanic sailed from Liverpool on its ill-fated voyage 99 years ago this year, Wallace was leader of the ship's eight-piece orchestra.
When the Titanic was holed shortly before midnight, the orchestra, who would already have finished for the night, made their way to the first-class lounge. A survivor said one of them told her they were "going to give them a tune to cheer things up a bit."
It was commonly believed that the orchestra played until the ship went down, and that their last piece was Nearer My God to Thee.
Wallace Hartley's was one of only three musicians' bodies to be identified, and the only one to be returned home. A crowd of 40,000 - almost twice Colne's population - turned out for his funeral procession.
A recent book, The Band that Played On, by Steve Turner, speculates that it was Hartley's faith - and that of cellist John Wesley Woodward, a fellow Methodist from Hill Top Methodist Chapel in West Bromwich - that encouraged them to play to the last.
"My feeling is that he was a person of great moral authority as well as a born leader," says the author. "One of the most convincing accounts I read, by one of the sailors, was that at the end there was a lone violinist playing Nearer My God to Thee. I suspect that was Wallace Hartley."
