THE name Sidney Conrad Siebert, immortalised on the wall of a Brightlingsea church, takes on special significance this weekend.

Mr Siebert was the town’s only resident to die when RMS Titanic, crossing the Atlantic on her maiden voyage, struck an iceberg on the fateful night of April 14, 1912.

On Saturday, he will be among the tragic 1,517 passengers and crew remembered.

A bedroom steward on the so-called unsinkable White Star liner, he was only 29 and married with a daughter, Lillian Elsie.

It is unlikely he knew, later that year, he would become a father again.

Today, he is commemorated on one of more than 100 tiles at All Saints’ Church, each one bearing the name of a Brightlingsea resident lost at sea.

The fact Mr Siebert, a yacht block-maker in the town, was on board the Titanic came as a shock to his distant cousin, Pat Gilbey, from Witham.

A keen family historian, she believed her background had been firmly rooted in London.

She recalled: “My husband, David, was looking at the Titanic website and found there had been a Siebert on the Titanic. I said I doubted it was one of ours.

“It made my stomach turn over when I realised it was him.”

The discovery has prompted Mrs Gilbey, of Christina Road, Witham, to research the background of her first cousin twice removed, who once lived in Nelson Street, Brightlingsea.

Hailing from a German family, he was married to a local girl, Winifred Savage, at All Saints’ in October, 1907.

Later, the couple moved to Southampton, where he worked as a member of the victualling crew on board RMS Oceanic, switching to the liner’s new sister ship, the Titanic, on April 1, 1912.

He was joined three days later by Winifred’s brother, Charles, a third-class steward, who survived the sinking. Sadly, there was no happy ending for Mr Siebert, who leapt into the freezing Atlantic waters as the boat sank, and was the last of seven crewmen to be picked up by lifeboat 4.

He died within a few hours. The unlit lifeboat might never have been spotted by the rescue ship, Carpathia, were it not for Rigel, an officer’s black Newfoundland dog, which barked as it swam, searching for its master, said Mrs Gilbey. Mr Siebert was reportedly one of four men buried at sea from the Carpathia.

He left his widow, pregnant with his second daughter, Constance, who was born in Brightlingsea in December 1912.

Mrs Gilbey said authors Alfred Wakeling and Peter Moon, who wrote Tiles of Tragedy, claimed Mr Siebert had been “forgotten, except for the perpetuation of his name on fired clay”.

But she added: “I don’t think this is true anymore as he is now an important member of my family and, I hope, will be remembered for generations to come.”

Mrs Gilbey is hoping to find out more about the family of Sidney Siebert. E-mail pat.davegilbey@btinternet.com