Unsinkable: The Full Story of the RMS Titanic

by Daniel Allen Butler

  Every steamship line had its proponents, every vessel her partisans. Marine engineering had come to be regarded as the pinnacle of human achievement. Yet while the Titanic may have been a marine engineer’s dream come true, the splendors of such details were lost on the general public. Instead, most people were more interested in the ship’s accommodations. Here, as in every other aspect of her design, the results were breathtaking.

  In an era when the comings and goings of titled or monied men and women on both sides of the Atlantic were followed by the lower classes with the same devotion that later generations would devote to professional athletes and popular entertainers, the style in which these rich and famous persons traveled had to be on a par with their station in society. Consequently, as far as First Class was concerned, the passenger accommodation was, again in the words of the magazine Shipbuilder, “of unrivaled extent and magnificence.” The periodical continued:The First Class public rooms include the dining saloon, reception room, restaurant, lounge, reading and writing room, smoking room, and the verandah cafes and palm courts. Other novel features are the gymnasium, squash racquet court, Turkish and electric baths, and the swimming bath. Magnificent suites of rooms, and cabins of size and style sufficiently diverse to suit the likes and dislikes of any passengers are provided. There is also a barber shop, a darkroom for photographers, a clothes pressing room, a special dining room for maids and valets, a lending library, a telephone system, and a wireless telegraphy installation. Indeed everything has been done in regard to the furniture and fittings to make the first class accommodation more than equal to that provided by the finest hotels on shore. 20

  The centerpiece of the Titanic’s decor was the Grand Staircase. Beginning under an opulent, white-enameled, wrought-iron skylight on A Deck, it descended through four decks to the First Class entrance on D Deck, in an elaborate William and Mary style, surrounded by a Louis XIV balustrade. The landing on D Deck admitted directly to the First Class Dining Saloon. The largest such room yet seen in a ship, it was over 114 feet in length, and ran the full width of the hull. With a 500-seat capacity, it presented a vast sea of spotless white linen tablecloths, glittering crystal, and gleaming silver, with the chairs tastefully decorated in Scottish thistles, English roses, or French fleurs-de-lys.

  The First Class Smoking Room, located on the Promenade, or A, Deck, perhaps best served to epitomize the care and expense lavished on the Titanic’s interior. A carefully orchestrated assembly of carved mahogany-paneled walls, inset with leaded glass panels and etched-patterned mirrors, enclosed the handsomely linoleumed floor, on which sat massive leather-covered armchairs beside lovingly carved, marble-topped tables. The First Class Smoking Room was an unbreachable bastion of masculinity and affluence carefully blended on a scale never seen before or since. The entire atmosphere immediately evoked images of silk waistcoats, gold watch chains, expensive cigars, and the deep baritones of rail barons, shipping magnates, international publishers, and millionaire businessmen. Nowhere else on the Titanic was the incredible investment of time and talent as evident—an investment no shipbuilder could ever afford to make again.

  The staterooms and suites for the First Class passengers were, of course, on a scale in keeping with the other First Class amenities. Instead of the usual bunk or berth typical of the transatlantic liner of the day, each stateroom had its own full-sized, wrought-iron bedstead, as well as a washstand with hot and cold running water. If a passenger was willing to spend the extra money, whole suites of three, four, or five rooms could be booked, in decors that included several Louis (XIV, XV, and XVI), Empire, Jacobean, Georgian, Queen Anne, Regence (as the British insisted on spelling “Regenry” for years), and Old or Modern Dutch. The most exclusive of these suites were located on B Deck, and even featured a private promenade—at a cost of $4,350, that is, nearly £1,000-for a one-way passage: the equivalent of over $80,000 in 1997 dollars. At close to $40 a front foot, the Titanic’s promenade suites, handsomely half-timbered in a mock-Tudor style, were the most expensive seagoing real estate ever. 21

  The craftsmanship and meticulous construction were carried over fully into Second and Third Classes as well. Indeed, Second Class rooms, public and private, could have been mistaken for First Class on almost any other ship on the North Atlantic, including the Dining Saloon, Smoking Room, and Library. The six decks that comprised Second Class were served by an electric elevator (First Class had three, but in 1911 any elevator was a novelty), and while the Second Class staircase may not have been as grand as that of First Class, it was still an exceedingly handsome structure. In what was certainly a bonus for Second Class, both First and Second Classes shared a common galley, one of the finest in existence afloat or ashore. (There are few four-star restaurants today that could duplicate the menu from First or Second Class for April 14, 1912.)

  Third Class was a story unto itself. A great many myths have built up around the flood of immigrants that flowed to the shores of the New World at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, aided by a spate of romanticized reporting, photographs, and artwork from the period. All too often these steerage—as Third Class was commonly known—passengers are portrayed as “tired, poor ... huddled masses,” as babushka- and shawl-beclad mothers gripping the hands of small, wide-eyed children, or as young men in ill-fitting clothing clutching their few belongings in loosely tied bundles, all hoping to find their fortunes in such exotic locales as New York, Pittsburgh, or Chicago.

  The truth, as with so many subjects of the journalism of that day, was a good deal more mundane. Despite the increasing numbers of central and southern Europeans emigrating to America, the majority of those leaving the Old World for the New were still Anglo-Saxon. Many were Germans, whose Fatherland was undergoing a rapid transformation from an agrarian society to an industrial juggernaut, with all the attendant social dislocations; many others were Britons, often skilled or semiskilled workers, forced to seek employment in America as Britain began her slow decline industrially and economically. To these people a ship was transportation, its sole purpose to take them from Southampton (or Cherbourg or Queenstown) to New York.

  Passengers like these were not influenced by Grand Staircases, electric elevators, swimming baths, or Smoking Rooms. Their interests lay in clean quarters and decent food. In this respect the Titanic served them admirably.

  Third Class berthing was divided between the fore and after ends of the ship. Single men and married couples were berthed forward, while single women and families were accommodated aft. (There was a Puritanical streak in the White Star Line, apparently peculiar to the company, that did not allow single men and women to have cabins anywhere near each other.) The cabins were spacious, spotless, and if a bit austere, by all reports comfortable enough. The unmarried men or women would share a room with three to five other passengers of the same sex, while married couples and families had rooms to themselves.

  Third Class accommodations included a large number of permanent cabins both fore and aft, as well as large sections of berths formed by movable wooden partitions, so that the numbers and sizes of the cabins could be adjusted to the number of passengers, and the unused space given over to open common areas. The days of the cramped, dark hold, reeking of unwashed humanity and bilge, were long since a thing of the past in British and German liners, but, as in so many other ways, the Titanic set new standards. The Third Class galley provided a fare that, though unspectacular, offered good food and plenty of it; in some cases, especially those from the more impoverished Irish counties, the steerage passengers ate better aboard ship than they ever had at home. All in all, it was a good deal more than most would be expecting when they paid for their passage.22

  The Titanic’s maiden voyage had originally been scheduled for February 1912, but unforeseen events got in the way. On September 20, 1911, the Olympic had collided with the Royal Navy cruiser HMS Hawke, and was returned to Belfast for repairs. These took six weeks to effect, the workmen being pulled
off the Titanic workgangs. In February 1912 the Olympic lost a propeller blade, again necessitating a return to Harland and Wolff, again causing work to be suspended on the Titanic for another three weeks. The time was not wasted, though, since the decision had been made to incorporate a number of modifications to the Titanic based on the in-service experience with the Olympic, and the delays allowed the plans for these modifications to be drawn up. Most of them were minor: the beds in some First Class cabins seemed too springy; there should be cigar holders in the WC’s; the crew’s galley needed an automatic potato peeler, and so on.

  One modification, though, was to permanently alter the Titanic’s appearance and instantly distinguish her from the Olympic: the forward two-fifths of the Promenade Deck were enclosed by glass and steel windows because First Class passengers on the Olympic had complained about spray thrown up by the bow in rough or choppy weather being blown across the open deck. This final modification was completed less than two weeks before the Titanic’s scheduled sailing day of April 10.

  On the morning of April 2, 1912, the most magnificent sight Belfast would ever see presented itself as the Titanic, drawn by four tugboats, slowly made her way down the Victoria Channel to the Belfast Lough to begin her sea trials. One by one the boilers were lit until twenty had been fired. Just before noon Capt. Edward J. Smith ordered the blue and white signal flag “A” (“I am undergoing sea trials”) hoisted from the bridge and three long blasts given from the Titanic’s siren. The next several hours were spent making a prolonged series of twists and turns, followed by a succession of runs straight across the Lough and back. The highest speed she was able to reach during these runs was 18 knots, and during one of these runs Captain Smith made a test to see how quickly she could stop. With both engines reversed and the turbine stopped the Titanic came to a halt in three minutes, fifteen seconds; the distance was 3,000 feet.

  By dusk, both owners and builders seemed satisfied. The Titanic returned to Belfast to drop off most of the Harland and Wolff workers who had accompanied the ship on her sea trials. Eight remained on board, including Thomas Andrews, who would make the maiden voyage to assist in solving any technical problems that might come up during the crossing. That night the Titanic steamed down the Irish Channel and around the Lizard to Southampton, to begin coaling and provisioning. Sailing day would be April 10.23

  CHAPTER 2

  Sailing Day

  Prepare yourselves according to your fathers’ houses, by your divisions....

  —II Chronicles 35:4

  APRIL 10, 1912, DAWNED BRIGHT AND CLEAR, AS DID SO MANY DAYS THAT spring. The sprawling docks, piers, and quays bustled with the seeming chaos of a busy seaport. At the White Star Line’s Ocean Dock lay the Titanic, plumes of smoke gently rising from her funnels, her white upperworks gleaming in the sunshine, her enormous hull dwarfing every other ship in the harbor. All morning long an endless stream of passengers and crew strode up the gangways and vanished into the bowels of the ship. The rush of people had begun a little after sunrise as the first of hundreds of firemen, greasers, trimmers, stokers, stewards, stewardesses, deckhands, and galleyhands began to make their way up to the giant ship. Every now and then a tremendous blast would issue forth from the Titanic’s great steam whistles, rattling windows for miles around, the stentorian tones (the whistles were pitched at C3) letting one and all know that this was a sailing day.1

  A maiden voyage was always cause for excitement in a seafaring town, even one as seawise as Southampton. Friends and families of passengers and crew, along with hundreds of sightseers, crowded down to the Ocean Dock. The Rev. William G. Hurley recalled years later that “on the day it [the Titanic] sailed, all England was merry in the celebration of a holiday for the occasion. Flags were flying in the breeze in every city and hamlet. There was the inevitable speech-making. That gloriously martial air, ‘Britannia Rules the Waves,’ was the mighty theme-song of the day.”2

  It is a scene treasured by thousands to this day, as the great ship was preparing to depart on what would most assuredly be an epic voyage, the throngs cheering themselves patriotically hoarse, while brass bands played and overhead flew the Union Jack, inspiring one and all with the greatness of British maritime accomplishments.

  Except it didn’t happen that way. Like so many others have done on other occasions, the Reverend Hurley was recalling those wonderful days before the Great War “with advantages.” Reflecting on the first years of the twentieth century from the perspective of its last, it is stunning to look upon the world of the Edwardian Era, a world that seems so far removed from the present that it is often difficult to believe that it is still a living memory for many. The values, beliefs, motives, the very pace of life seem nearly incomprehensible today. Barry Pitt, in his introduction to John Keegan’s August 1914, caught the essence of this seeming unreality when he wrote:Dimly can be perceived a life which seems to bear no relation to the present one, conducted apparently to a different rhythm, by a different species of being, reacting to a totally different scheme of behavior. Bewhiskered monarchs write stiff family notes to each other before going out to shoot stag or bird, tiara’d queens whisper behind their fans, frock-coated statesmen hurry from capital to capital and debate in solemn enclave (occasionally one is shot), while the tight-collared and cloth-capped masses alternately riot or cheer, fortified the while on ale, wine, or porter, at a penny a pint. Away in a far corner a square of British infantry in blue and scarlet repels cavalry charges or hordes of fanatical natives. Perhaps the most astonishing aspect ... is that the sun seems to have been shining all the time.3

  Yet it was not a Golden Age or Belle Epoque except for the privileged minority of the upper classes. Class defined the Edwardian world. The method of making the distinctions between the classes varied from country to country—it was decided more by wealth than birth in the United States, just the reverse in Great Britain—but in any society the boundaries were usually quite clearly defined, never more so than when distinguishing between “we” and “they.” Usually the classes fell into three categories—working, or lower class; the middle class; and the upper class, or aristocracy. Mobility, especially from the middle to the upper class, was discouraged and restricted, usually by tradition, occasionally by law, although the line between the lower and middle classes blurred occasionally.

  It was not an era of unbridled confidence, innocence, comfort, stability, security, or peace, although it has often been portrayed as such. This is not to say that these qualities were not present; they were, but in an ongoing state of flux. People were more confident of their standards, believing in their values, secure in the ideas of progress. But equally present were doubts about the future, created by a complicated system of military alliances coupled with ever-growing expenditures for armaments; protests and demonstrations over appalling working conditions and hours as well as grossly inadequate wages for the working classes; violent confrontations between protesters and police, or strikers and strike-breakers, clashing in street brawls, while anarchists and nihilists carried out a haphazard rash of bombings and assassinations. A new form of hatred and fear manifested itself in bloody confrontations between British police and the IRA, or Austro-Hungarian authorities and Serbian pan-nationalists, or Russian soldiers and Russian revolutionaries.

  Yet it would be deceptive to depict the first decade of the twentieth century as too closely resembling the last, for through all the tension and upheaval, there was a constant note of confidence running though the times. Men and women everywhere, of all social classes, readily acknowledged that problems existed in society, though they might differ on how grave those problems were. But even the anarchist with his bomb believed that the problems had solutions; it was only a matter of how and when they would be found. It was that sense of confidence that made the Edwardian Era unique.

  Perhaps most tellingly, these were the years of the music of Richard Strauss and Igor Stravinsky, the philosophy of Friederich Nietzsche and Henri Louis Bergson, the art o
f Cezanne and Seurat, the writings of Emil Zola and Bertrand Russell—all of them compelling, forceful, and dynamic, almost revolutionary. It was a remarkable expression of art imitating life, the artists and thinkers transforming the external expressions of their disciplines as thoroughly as the external trappings of Western society were being transformed.

  This first decade of the twentieth century was the culmination of a hundred years of the most accelerated rate of change in society and technology that mankind had ever known. Between 1812 and 1912, humanity had gone from transportation, communication, production, and manufacturing methods powered by human or animal muscle, augmented by wind and water to a world of steam engines, steamships, and steam-powered machinery. The new century was one of electric lighting and communications (though as yet electricity was common only in the cities, and then only in the middle- and upper-class areas). By 1912 trucks, lorries, and motorcars powered by internal combustion engines were well on their way to supplanting horses as a means of transport.