Two Frederick Barretts worked in the boiler rooms of Titanic.

Mr Frederick Barrett (33) was married and a resident of Southampton. He joined Titanic at Southampton as a stoker/fireman. He died in the sinking. His body, if recovered, was never identified.

OR

Mr Frederick Barrett, 28, was born in Liverpool. When he signed-on to the Titanic on 6 April he gave his address as 24 King St. (Southampton). His previous ship was the New York. As a leading fireman he took home monthly wages of £6 10s.

Barrett was working in boiler room 6 at the time of the collision, he felt the impact of the iceberg and then heard a sound like thunder rolling towards him as it tore along the ship’s side:
A graphic story was told by Frederick Barrett a leading stoker.
He was in No. 6 section, and Mr Shepherd was the engineer on duty.
“There is a clock face in the stokehole and a red light goes up for ‘Stop.’ I was talking to Mr Hesketh when the red light came up, and I shouted, ‘Shut all the dampers.’ That order was obeyed, but the crash came before we had them all shut.
There was a rush of water into my stokehole. We were standing on plates about six feet above the tank tops, and the water came in about two feet above the plates.
Together with Mr Hesketh I jumped through the doorway into No. 5 section. The watertight door between the section was then open, but it shut just as we jumped through. This door is worked from the bridge.
I do not know whether any more men in my stokehole were saved. The water was coming in fast enough through the side of the ship to flood the place.

According to the account given in A Night to Remember when water suddenly began to gush through the forward bulkhead Shepherd urged Harvey and Barrett to get out but Harvey rushed to save his colleague, the last thing Barrett noticed as he clambered up the escape ladder was the two engineers disappearing under a torrent of ice cold water.

Barrett’s testimony to the British enquiry does not mention this scenario and actually indicates that Shepherd had already been carried to another compartment before that in which he was injured became flooded and therefore Barrett could not have seen him as he made his escape. The truth remains a mystery.

Barrett’s later testimony hinted that the bulkhead that gave way may have been weakened by a fire that smouldered in the bunkers throughout the voyage:

Barrett was put in command of lifeboat 13. At around 1.40 a.m. the boat was successfully lowered although the occupants narrowly avoided a torrent of water from an outfall in the ship’s side and when it had reached the water Barrett and able seaman Robert Hopkins had to work quickly to cut the boat free from the falls as it drifted under lifeboat 15 which had begun its descent. At 4.45 a.m. Barrett brought his boat and its occupants safely to the side of the rescue ship Carpathia.

A few weeks later, on May 25, Frederick Barrett was working on the Olympic. When Senator Smith was given a tour of the Titanic’s sister by Captain Haddock as part of his investigation, Haddock mentioned that one of his stokers had been aboard Titanic, and Smith then went down to the engine room to talk with Barrett and get a better impression of how conditions had been aboard Titanic in the boiler rooms at the time of the collision.