News and a poster announcing the sinking of the Titanic,

When Ned Parfett, a 16-year-old newspaper seller, was handed his copies of the Evening News and a poster announcing the sinking of the Titanic, he abandoned plans to go to the spot he usually occupied. 

Instead, he headed immediately for Oceanic House, the offices of the White Star Line just off Trafalgar Square. His quick thinking not only ensured that he would sell all his newspapers, but won him lasting fame as the subject of one of the most enduing images of the 20th century.

Six years later Ned was killed on 29 October 1918, age 22 during a German bombardment just two weeks before the end of the war, when a shell landed on the Quartermaster’s stores as he was picking up some clothes before going on leave.

Ned Parfett, born in 1896, and one of four brothers who served from Cornwall Road, Waterloo, enlisted in the Royal Field Artillery in 1916, serving as a despatch rider, then moving onto reconnaissance duties. He was awarded the Military Medal and mentioned in despatches for his gallant conduct during a series of missions at the front.

After his death the officer who recommended Ned for special recognition wrote to one of his brothers: ‘On many occasions he accompanied me during severe shelling and I always placed the greatest confidence in him.’

Ned Parfett lies in the British war cemetery at Verchain-Maugré in France.

This famous image of Ned on the corner of Trafalgar Square has assured him a place in history.