The RMS Titanic
This program features the story of the British luxury passenger liner, the Titanic, that sank in April 1912. It’s one of the most famous tragedies in modern history which inspired numerous stories, several films, a musical and has been subject of many scientific speculations.
The Titanic was designed by the Irish shipbuilder William Pirrie and built by Harland and Wolff in Belfast, and was thought to be the world’s luxurious ship. It spanned 883 feet from stern to bow and its hull was divided into 16 watertight compartments. Because four of these compartments could be flooded without causing a critical loss of buoyancy, the Titanic was considered unsinkable.
On April 10, the RMS Titanic departed Southhampton England, on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. And so, with words from Captain Edward Smith to his First Officer – “Take her to sea, Mr Murdoch”, Titanic’s perilous adventure, set sail.
After the Titanic left Southhampton it stopped in Cherbourg, France to pick up more passengers and mail. It made one stop in Queenstown, Ireland, where the ship took on more passengers as well as mail to be delivered to the United States. In all, there were more than 2,200 people aboard the ship as it made its way across the ocean and on board, the entertainment began.
The first class passengers had lots of entertainment aboard the Titanic. For some men the biggest entertainment was the gym, which had stationary bicycles. First class also had a place called Brandy’s where men would go and hang-out and smoke. There were also a nice heated pool for the first class passengers only, and the Grand Staircase where you announced your entrance into the dining room, be greeted by friends or sometimes family and then ate, all while the grand band played.
The people of the second class shared most of the entertainment and they also had a gym, with most of its accessories. There were areas where they could go and relax and take a break just like Brandy’s. They shared the grand dining room with the first class passengers, but the only difference was that they didn’t have as grand of an entrance and, the second class passengers were treated with less respect.
The people of the third class didn’t have the same entertainment opportunities as first or second class passengers, but they did have some entertainment even though it was of low quality. They were kept separate from the first and second class passengers and were treated with even less respect. They had their own place to go to dinner for some relaxing time. It was a very large room with tables everywhere. They could come, sit down, have an alcoholic beverage, and get up on stage and dance and sing in front of all the passengers.
The first few days seemed to pass without incident. On the morning of April 14, the Titanic received a warning about ice in its path from the Caronia. Captain Smith reportedly posted this message on the bridge. He then led the religious service for the first class passengers. Another message about dangerous ice came from the Baltic in the early afternoon. Captain Smith showed this message to Joseph Bruce Ismay, the chairman of the White Star Line and Ismay held on to this note until later that evening.
The earlier warning from the Baltic is posted on the ship’s bridge around 7pm. A half an hour later, Captain Smith attended a private party held by Mr and Mrs George Dunton Widener in the ship’s a la carte restaurant. Around this time, another ice warning from the nearby Californian was sent to another ship in its fleet, this transmission was reportedly overheard by the Titanic crew.
After the dinner party, Captain Smith met with his second officer Charles Lightoller on the bridge. Not long after their conversation ended, Captain Smith turned in for the night. Swamped with telegraphic messages for passengers, the operators on the Titanic put aside a warning about icebergs from the Mesaba. A warning transmission from the Californian to the Titanic was also cut off by operators.
Around 11.40pm, a crew member spotted an iceberg in the path of the Titanic, but the crew was unable to move away in time. The ship scraped against the iceberg and suffered damage to its forward area. Several holes have been made in the ship’s side, allowing the sea water to begin rushing in. Soon after the collision, Captain Smith went to the bridge and worked on assessing the situation. He soon learned that the ship was on its way down and ordered the crew to prepare the lifeboats. The first distress call went out after midnight.
Unprepared for such an event, the Titanic didn’t have enough lifeboats to carry all of its passengers to safety. Captain Smith managed the situation the best that he could, helping with the loading of the boats and managing the transmission of distress calls. Captain Smith was last seen headed for the bridge. After 2.00am the next morning, the Titanic fully slipped into the dark cold waters of the North Atlantic, taking its captain and 1500 passengers with it.
The Titanic was billed as the paragon of luxury travel and as a result, many prominent individuals who lost their lives on board decided to book a trip on the doomed ship. One such person was millionaire John Jacob Astor who was a member of the prominent Astor family and helped build the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York City. Astor was travelling with his wife Madeleine in Europe when she became pregnant. To ensure the child would be born in the US, the couple booked a trip home on the Titanic.
Then there was William Stead a highly influential editor who, in an uncanny twist, may have foreseen his death on the Titanic. He penned a fictional story in1886 that bore an unsettling resemblance to the real-life events of the Titanic. And in a biography, it states that Stead didn’t hang around on deck as the Titanic sank, he spent his final hours reading in his cabin.
Thomas Andrews was no ordinary Titanic victim. The longtime Harland and Wolff employee designed the ship itself. He travelled on the Titanic’s maiden voyage in order to observe the ship and make recommendations on areas where the ship could be improved. The 39-year old shipbuilder was seen helping women and children into lifeboats and throwing overboard deck chairs and other objects to people in the water. Like Captain Smith his chief concern for safety was for everyone but himself.
Isidor Straus was the co-owner of Macy’s. Straus was offered a spot on a lifeboat while the ship was sinking. He declined, saying he wouldn’t board a raft until every woman and child had gotten off the ship. His wife Ida then refused to leave her husband. “We have lived together for many years. Where you go, I go”. Ida then ordered her maid to board a lifeboat. She also gave her a mink coat, stating that she wouldn’t need the garment anymore. The couple were last seen together on the deck of the Titanic.
Benjamin Guggenheim was a member of the powerful Guggenheim family, which earned its fortune in the mining industry. He was travelling on the ship with his mistress and a number of staffers. After hitting the iceberg Guggenheim was initially optimistic about the ship’s prospects, telling his maid that, “we will soon see each other again. It’s just a repair. Tomorrow the Titanic will go on again”. He reportedly put a rose in his buttonhole and stated “We’ve dressed up in our best and are prepared to go down like gentlemen”.
Finally there was Henry Harris who was a major player on Broadway. He’d started producing plays and managing stars back in 1897, and was returning to the US after a business trip to London. He went down with the ship after ensuring his wife Renee, got onto a lifeboat. She said “Harry lifted me in is arms and threw me into the arms of a sailor and then threw me a blanket that he had been carrying for me through the hours”.
The White Star Line managing director Jospeh Ismay was the highest-ranking company official to survive the disaster. He helped load people into the lifeboats until the end then reluctantly boarded a lifeboat 20 minutes before the ship sank into the Atlantic. He later said he turned away as the Titanic slipped beneath the surface of the water saying “I did not wish to see her go down, I am glad I did not”. Joseph Ismay may have survived the sinking of the Titanic, but he never lived down the public scorn he received in the wake of the disaster. Ismay caught a lot of flack for boarding a lifeboat before other passengers. He was ostracised in society and ultimately resigned for the post and kept a low profile and never fully recovered from the ordeal.
Socialite and philanthropist Margaret Brown is also best known for surviving the Titanic disaster. She married James Joseph Brown and the couple became fabulously wealthy when Brown’s mining business struck ore. Brown was returning from a voyage around Europe when she decided to book a trip on the Titanic. During the disaster, she reportedly helped to row the lifeboat and demanded that the group of survivors row back to the spot where the ship went down in order to look for other survivors. This earned her the nickname ‘the unsinkable Molly Brown’. Brown’s life was immortalised in the Broadway Musical “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” which was later adapted to a Hollywood film.
Finally, one of the youngest passengers Roberta Josephine Watt who was twelve years old at the time, noted that her most vivid memory was that she roused from her sleep, and told to say her prayers because the Titanic was in trouble. She wrote about the experience as a student in 1917. “We heard many pistol shots, and could see people running hopelessly up and down the decks. They asked if anyone could row, and mother said she could. That’s how she spent the time. Rowing or standing. Some in the lifeboat were crying. One or two were hysterical. There was nothing anyone could do. We just kept on going. We didn’t row much. Just enough to get far enough away from the suction. Then we puttered. We just drifted around until dawn, occasionally flicking a gentleman’s cigar lighter to let the other boats see where we were. We didn’t get aboard Carpathia until about 9.00am”.
While much attention has been paid to narratives such as the Titanic’s aristocratic passengers, narratives of families and loved ones torn apart, and the ship’s doomed last few hours, attention should also be paid to another telling aspect of Titanic’s fatal story – it’s music. For its frenetic send off to its final hours, music was a large component of life about the Titanic. While classic tunes were played in the first class halls and public decks, rhythms of more lively bagpipes and ragtime tunes sounded in the third class quarters.
When the Titanic struck the iceberg, the band headed by Wallace Hartley was called upon to play in order to allay panic and to maintain an atmosphere of calm. One of the most lingering images of the sinking of the Titanic is of the band playing, regardless of their own safety, while all the lifeboats sailed away. In the final chaos, someone thought they heard the hymn ‘Nearer My God To Thee’. The news quickly spread around the world and the musicians gained fame overnight. What was actually played in that dreadful moment is a matter of debate, but the image of the band playing the hymn has become legend and will forever live on.
On the first of September 1985, one of the greatest mysteries of the 20th century was solved as three supercharged lights strained to break through the murky depths of the Atlantic Ocean floor, to reveal a sharp mass rising from below which clearly didn’t fit with its surroundings. Those lights were attached to a tiny three person deep water submarine called Alvin captained by Dr Robert Ballard, a renowned oceanographer and underwater archaeologist and that sharp mass, was the bow of the Titanic. She lies at a depth of about 12,500 feet and about 370 miles south-southeast off the coast of Newfoundland, the bow and stern separated by approx 640 meters.
Numerous dives to the Titanic began with BBC correspondent Mike McKimm. He visited the wreckage of the RMS Titanic in 2005 in order to place a memorial plaque on the bridge of the ship. The plaque reads ‘in memory of all those who died on RMS Titanic. From Harland and Wolff and the people of Belfast’. And one of the most famous expeditions was by the director of the film Titanic, James Cameron. According to the BBC, Cameron used footage gathered from eleven dives to the wreck, in the popular movie.
Some items have been salvaged from the Titanic wreck and are on display in various museums, which has caused an element of debate about whether the Titanic should remain untouched. As a memorial to those who died on board, or if these items can teach us a great deal more about the Titanic.
Milllvina Dean, who as a baby was wrapped in a sack and lowered into a lifeboat in the frigid North Atlantic, and the last survivor of the 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic, died in 2009 at the age of 97 in Southhampton England. She was one of 706 people mostly women and children, who survived. Dean had no memories of the sinking and said she preferred it that way. “I wouldn’t want to remember, really”, she said. “I don’t want them to raise it, I think the other survivors would say exactly the same”.
Today, the wreck is unrecognisable and is now covered in what looks like rusty icicles, called rusticles and a bacterial specimen eating away at it slowly. Scientists claim that the Titanic only has about 20 more years until it is completely gone from the ocean floor. Titanic’s story will forever be told and during these final years, she will remain in the dark depths of the ocean as a maritime memorial.
I’m Maggie Morgan and you can listen to my program Meet Me At The Movies on 2RRR88.5FM every Tuesday 9.00am – 10.00am or on the Community Radio Network.