Arthur Peuchen –wikipedia

Arthur Godfrey Peuchen (Born April 18, 1859 in Montreal, Québec, Canada, † December 7, 1929 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada) was a Canadian businessman, military and yacht athlete. In 1897 he founded the Chemical Group Standard Chemical, Iron & Lumber Company, whose president he was until 1914.

Peuchen was born in Montreal in 1859 as the son of the Prussian province of Westphalia, Godfrey E. Peuchen and his wife Eliza Eleanor Clarke from Hull in England. He had two younger sisters, Alice and Nora, and a younger brother, Stanley Cooper Peuchen. He was taught in private schools in Montreal until the family moved to Toronto in 1871. His military career began there when he joined the Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada, a regiment of the Canadian forces. In 1888 he became a lieutenant, in 1894 as a captain and in 1904 he became a major. In 1911 he was Marshal at the coronation celebrations of Georg V of Great Britain.

On April 26, 1893, he married Margaret Thomson (1867–1951), daughter of John and Jessie Fairbairn Thomson from Orillia, Ontario. With her he had a daughter, Jessie Thomson Peuchen (* 1894; later Mrs. Henry Chichele Lefroy) and a son, Godfrey Alan Peuchen (* 1897). Peuchen’s grandfather maternal was a London manager, Brighton and South Coast Railway. His father had worked as a railway entrepreneur in South America until he emigrated to Canada in 1850 to work for the Grand Trunk Railway. Peuchen lived with his family in Toronto (599 Jarvis Street), but felt particularly on his 38-room estate “Woodlands” on the banks of the Lake Simcoe, built in a neo-Gothic style in 1869, which was at home, which is over a marina, a golf course and one Tennis court.

He was interested in chemistry and perfected a method until 1897 to gain useful chemical compounds from hardwood and undergrowth, including acetone, acetone, methanol and formaldehyde. The products were used in Canada by the textile industry and also by farmers, while the acetone was used to produce Kordit. As a result, he founded the Standard Chemical, Iron & Lumber Company, whose president he became. He owned large forest on Hinton in the province of Alberta and also monitored the business of the McLaren Lumber Company.

Peuchen was also an enthusiastic sailing athlete and yacht owner who with his 20-meter yacht Vreda The Atlantic crossed and repeated trophies in regattas on the big lakes. At times he was Vice Commodore and Rear Commodore of the Royal Canadian Yacht Club. He also belonged to several sporting associations such as the National Club, the Hunt Club, the Ontario Jockey and the Military Institute (all in Toronto).

His company gradually opened several locations and refineries in Canada, but also in London, Paris and Germany. For this reason, Peuchen traveled a lot by ship to Europe. On the return trip from one of these business trips, he went on April 10, 1912 in Southampton as a passenger on board the RMS Titanic , which led to her maiden voyage to New York. It was his 40th Atlantic crossing. He took the first-class cabin C-104. Peuchen was not delighted with the fact that captain Edward Smith had command about the ship because he thought he was unsuitable and too old.

As the Titanic On the night of April 15, 1912, Peuchen was informed by a steward that she had collided with an iceberg. He then went back into his cabin and took three oranges and a pin. However, he left $ 200,000 in stocks and securities because he did not believe that the ship would decrease. When the rescue boat No. 6 was left to water on the side side of the boat deck, Peuchen noticed that it was very weakly manned. Only two male crew members, Robert Hichens and Frederick Fleet, sat in it, otherwise only women and children from the first class, including Margaret Brown, Helen Candee, Alice Cleaver and Leila Meyer, the daughter of Saks-Fifth-Avenue founder Andrew Saks. He spoke to the responsible officer, Charles Lightoller, and offered himself as an experienced yacht sailor to support the boat crew. The captain Smith, who was nearby, heard that and suggested that he go to the promenade deck underneath, open a window there and get on the boat. Instead, Peuchen had a rope slide down into the boat that had already been lowered several decks. This was an exception, since only women and children were allowed to get on on the port side during the evacuation.

He was later criticized for his behavior in rescue boat No. 6. He supported the helmsman Robert Hichens in his hiring, who ignored the demands of women, back to the fall of the fall in order to absorb swimmers. He also tolerated Hichens’ verbal attack on Margaret Brown. It was also reported that he complained about fatigue and only grabbed one rudder after he was asked by Margaret Brown. On the other boat inmates, it seemed as if Peuchen overestimated and thought as a professional control as a better commander than the helmsman Robert Hichens. After the demise, he publicly made the captain and the crew of the Titanic responsible for the disaster.

For his rescue and for his attitude and statements after the demise, Peuchen in Toronto was largely considered a coward. There were rumors that his upcoming appointment as a lieutenant colonel of Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada would not take place. The appointment was nevertheless on May 21, 1912. In addition, he received the Award Officer’s Long Service Decoration for his many years of army.

After the outbreak of the First World War, Peuchen withdrew from the Chemical Company standard to take command on the Home Battalion of the Queen’s Own Rifles. Due to poor investments, he lost a large part of his assets in the 1920s. Arthur Peuchen died in Toronto in 1929 and was buried on the local Mount Pleasant Cemetery. In the film adaptation of the same name by Walter Lord’s book about the downfall of the Titanic , A Night to Remember (1958), he was portrayed by actor Robert Ayres. In 1987, Peuchen’s wallet including tram tickets, travel checks and business cards during the wreck of the Titanic found.