Titanic engineer Joseph Bell was 51 when Titanic went down. His body was never recovered so a memorial gravestone was cut into his father’s gravestone at Farlam’s St Thomas-a-Becket Church. Over the years though the area became overgrown and inaccessible. And time and weather had faded the engraving on the memorial as well. So an appeal went out to help restore the grave to its proper condition. It meant cutting away the overgrowth, creating a new footpath to make it accessible, and restoring the memorial to its proper condition. Thus the Joseph Bell Memorial Appeal was created to get funds to make this all possible.

And it has been done. The re-dedication of the memorial was recently done and John Lightfoot, chairman of  Solar Solve Marine, laid a wreath representing seafarers and maritime organizations globally. Lightfoot had become personally involved after reading a news story about the appeal for funds. He made the maritime industry aware of the appeal and getting their support. They hope to get some additional funds to add other improvements and a notice board detailing the history.

Sources:
1. A Day Of Pride At Titanic Memorial(3 June 2014,The Shields Gazette)
2. Joseph Bell Chief Engineer of Titanic(Family website)
3. Joseph Bell (Encyclopedia Titanica)