[Bandleader Hartley] apparently believed that music could be more powerful that physical force in bringing order to chaos. - Steve Turner

The arrival of Wallace Hartley’s body became a focal point of national grief. This young man not only represented all who had died on the Titanic, but also the values that the British feared were in decline.

“If any glory at all attaches to the awful tragedy of the sea about which the world is still talking, it circles round the heads of these heroic bandsmen who played the mighty vessel to its doom

In the whole history of the sea, there is little to equal the wonderful behavior of these humble players.