W. T. Stead and the Titanic

W. T. Stead wrote of a liner sinking before the Titanic, and died aboard it on 15 April 1912. A medium's sitting after his death was reported by a vice-admiral.

The Psi Encyclopedia of the Society for Psychical Research records that W. T. Stead described a ship sinking after a collision, with great loss of life for lack of lifeboats, in The Pall Mall Gazette in 1886. A novel Stead published in 1892 features a liner named the Majestic, whose captain is Edward J. Smith, which founders after an iceberg collision in the North Atlantic. Stead drowned in April 1912 when the Titanic went down. That ship Edward J. Smith also captained. Mental Floss gives the date as 15 April 1912 and says Stead was a passenger.

Wikipedia adds another story told alongside the Titanic. Morgan Robertson's novella Futility, first published in 1898, features an American ocean liner called the Titan, which hits an iceberg and goes under in the North Atlantic. Wikipedia says that ship and its fate drew notice for resembling the Titanic and her sinking 14 years afterwards.

The Psi Encyclopedia also reports that Stead had meant to escort the American trance-voice medium Etta Wriedt on a trip to England. Wriedt travelled alone, and on 6 May she held a sitting in Wimbledon. Estelle, Stead's daughter, attended too, with Vice-Admiral Moore. Moore said Stead spoke with his daughter for forty minutes or more.