Five local men were aboard the White Star liner Titanic as she slid away from Southampton pier on her maiden voyage on April 10, 1912.

Among the 350 first-class passengers was Austin Partner of Surbiton, a prominent Stock Exchange member, and one of Britain's four leading authorities on Canadian investments.

Ten days previously he had become a partner with the well-known stockbrokers, Meyer and Robertson. Now he was making one of his regular business trips to Canada.

Why, he wondered, was he plagued by a sense of foreboding? He had enjoyed all his previous 16 trans-Atlantic trips. But this one, he told friends, inexplicably filled him with dread.

Meanwhile, Walter Hawkesford of 58 Lower Ham Road, Kington, was mingling happily with the 305 passengers in the second-class section.

He was an export representative for Schweppes, on a business trip to Canada and Bermuda.

It made him the envy of his friends back home at the Canbury Bowling Club, and his wife had accompanied him to Southampton so she could see the finest liner the world had ever known.

How she had admired his snug cabin, and longed to go with him on the voyage.

Young Leonard Moore had mixed feelings.

It was exciting to be 19, to have secured a place on this marvellous vessel, and to be travelling to a new life with his married brother in New York.

But leaving his parents at 134 Acre Road, Kingston, had been hard. Percy Ward and Athol Broome had little time for such thoughts.

Both were both stewards, busy attending passengers intent on enjoying themselves to the full.

Athol Broome was from Long Ditton, and had been married only a year.

But, as a White Star steward of several years' standing, he was used to partings.

His previous trips to the US had been on board the Oceanic. It was quite an honour to be transferred to the Titanic for her maiden voyage.

Percy Ward had spent most of his life in the modest family house near Kingston Grammar School in London Road, and had been a model pupil at the Bunyan Baptist Sunday School.

The next four days were a delight for the 1,405 passengers, with 10 decks to explore and a host of luxuries to enjoy. It's often forgotten that the cheapest accommodation boasted a high degree of elegance.

"Even the third-class accommodation was as richly and beautifully decorated as though kings and queens were on the third-class list," remarked Lloyds Weekly.

"There had been economy only in one thing - boats and rafts. It seemed so foolish to carry boats when the Titanic was unsinkable."

The idyll was short-lived. On Sunday, just before midnight, the iceberg struck.

Percy Ward and Athol Broome were never heard of again. Presumably, like most of the crew, they went down with the ship.

But Athol's white steward's jacket, embroidered with his name, was salvaged from the wreck in the 1980s, and displayed in the Maritime Museum's Titanic exhibition at Greenwich in 1995.

Back in Kingston, Mr and Mrs Edward Moore wept with relief on learning that their son's name was on the list of survivors posted up outside the White Star Line's offices.

Three days later, their tears were of grief.

There had been a cruel error in identification and 19-year-old Leonard was, after all, among the lost.

In Surbiton, Nellie Partner waited fearfully at home in Ewell Road for news of her husband, Austin.

A fortnight later, having heard nothing, she assumed he had gone down with the liner. Then came an unexpected message.

Mr Partner's body had been found. It would be embalmed, and sent from New York to Tilbury.

He was one of the few Titanic victims to be buried in home soil.

On May 21, the funeral department of Hide's famous emporium in Kingston Market Place brought the body from Tilbury to St Pancras by train.

Then it was carried to Kingston by a carriage and pair.

For one last night, Mr Partner lay at rest in the house he and his wife had shared since their marriage in 1897.

Then, on May 23, his coffin was borne on a Washington carriage to a laurel-lined grave in Long Ditton churchyard.

More than 1,000 mourners came to pay their respects. Police had to be hired to control the huge crowds at the house and churchyard.

Only one hymn was sung at the funeral service: Nearer My God to Thee, said to have been sung five weeks previously by passengers and crew as the Titanic sank.

The only local passenger to survive the Titanic tragedy was Walter Hawkesford, who returned alive and well to his Victorian villa that still remains in Lower Ham Road.

He described the disaster in a letter to his wife from New York: "You would hardly believe the calmness of everybody. Not a woman even was panic-stricken.

"The men stood by while the women quickly and methodically got into the boats, with a few men in each boat to row.

"When it came to the last boat but one, I was told to man it with about four others, and the remainder of the women.

"The boat was lowered 90 feet to the water, and we rowed about a half-mile from the ship.

"It was very cold and a beautiful night, starry, and the sea as smooth as glass.

"We watched the ship's bow gradually getting lower and lower, and then about two o'clock all the lights went out, her stern slowly rose in the air, and she slowly glided away.

"We took off our caps and bowed our heads. Nobody spoke for some minutes."

The party was eventually picked up by the liner Carpathia.