Two: Setting Sail, History Smashers: The Titanic

Before the Titanic could sail across the Atlantic, the ship had to undergo sea trials, or tests in the water to make sure everything was working well. That was scheduled for April 1 but was delayed a day because of wind. Crews were putting the finishing touches on work until the very last minute.

On April 2, the Titanic completed her sea trials and left Belfast for the last time, setting sail for Southampton. There, the ship would pick up supplies for the trip. A lot of supplies. The journey across the Atlantic with more than two thousand people required literally tons of food.

Fancy dinners planned for the first-class passengers required not only food but fine china and very specific silverware. In addition to thousands of cups and plates, workers loaded dinner forks, fruit forks, fish forks, oyster forks, dinner spoons, dessert spoons, egg spoons, teaspoons, salt spoons, and mustard spoons onto the ship. There were towels, blankets, and sheets for all the passengers. The Titanic also needed fuel for its voyage, so crews loaded another 4,427 tons of coal into the bunkers.

Most of the Titanic’s crew boarded the ship in Southampton—sailors, stewards, deckhands, and stokers, who kept the fires going. It took a lot of staff to feed all those passengers, so the Titanic’s crew also included waiters, butchers, bakers, a pastry cook, a fish cook, a “coffee man” and his assistant, a wine butler, plate washers, and other kitchen workers. There were wireless operators to send and receive messages, along with night watchmen and lookouts to watch for icebergs. Every part of the ship seemed to have its own staff. The fitness area had gym instructors, a squash court attendant, and masseuses. There were clothes pressers, a post office clerk, a telephone operator, and an orchestra leader and band members. A ship’s bugler was on board to announce meal times, and some doctors came along in case anyone got sick.

A handful of shipyard workers from Belfast had joined the Titanic’s maiden voyage as well, in case there was last-minute work to do or small repairs to make during the trip. Shipbuilder Thomas Andrews was on board, too, to oversee any changes or adjustments to the ship that might need to happen on the way.

WHAT DID THEY GET PAID?

The men and women who staffed the Titanic earned a wide range of salaries for their work. Here’s a sampling of what some workers earned in British currency.

WHAT DID THEY PAY?

Passenger fares were based on the kind of tickets they bought.

3rd class—about £7

More than 700 passengers bought third-class tickets.

2nd class—about £12

About 285 people bought second-class tickets.

1st class—as much as £870

About 325 passengers had first-class tickets that cost various amounts, depending on the cabin.

“It’s like a floating town,” passenger Charlotte Collyer wrote to her parents after the Titanic left Southampton. “You would not imagine you were on a ship. There is hardly any motion [and] she is so large we have not felt sick….”

Titanic officer Charles Lightoller said the ship was so big that it took him two weeks to find his way around. “It is difficult to convey any idea of the size of a ship like the Titanic,” he said, “when you could actually walk miles along decks and passages, covering different ground all the time.”

From Southampton, the Titanic headed for Cherbourg, France, where some people who’d only bought tickets for a cross-channel trip got off the ship. More passengers boarded the Titanic in Cherbourg as well. They came from a wide range of countries and backgrounds. While some famous movies about the Titanic depict all of the passengers as white, that wasn’t the real deal. It’s true that there were many English and Irish people on board, but dozens of Syrian passengers boarded in Cherbourg.

So did second-class passenger Joseph Laroche, a Black Haitian engineer who was leaving France with his family because racism was preventing him from getting a good job there. Laroche died in the wreck, but his wife and two daughters were rescued in a lifeboat.

FURRED AND FEATHERED PASSENGERS

Not all of the Titanic’s passengers were human. Pets cost the same as children—half of the adult fare—and there were reportedly twelve dogs on board when the ship set out on its voyage. Philadelphia banker Robert W. Daniel brought along the champion French bulldog he’d just purchased. American millionaire John Jacob Astor had his Airedale named Kitty, and Henry Sleeper Harper brought his Pekingese, a fluffy little dog he’d named Sun Yat-sen, after the president of China. Other canine passengers reported to be on board were a Pomeranian, a King Charles spaniel, a chow chow, a Great Dane, and a little lapdog named Frou-Frou. Three of the small dogs were rescued in lifeboats with their humans, but the rest went down with the ship. Other animals on the Titanic’s maiden voyage included some roosters and hens, a yellow canary, and the ship’s cat, named Jenny.

After Cherbourg, the Titanic returned to Ireland for one last stop in Queenstown, where seven people got off the ship and another 120 passengers boarded. And then it was time to set off across the Atlantic!

The Titanic pulled out of Queenstown on April 11 with 2,201 passengers and crew on board. The first-class passengers sat down to a big breakfast that included ham, sausage, bacon, eggs, rolls, baked apples and fruit, and buckwheat cakes with blackcurrant jam and honey. The voyage across the Atlantic was officially underway! For three days at sea, the Titanic’s passengers would enjoy the fancy dining rooms, the brisk air of the promenades where they walked, and the company of their fellow passengers before their ship hit the iceberg.

EARLY WARNINGS OF DISASTER?

A handful of Titanic passengers reported having an uneasy feeling about the ship’s maiden voyage, like something bad might happen. Chief Officer Henry Wilde was supposed to have been given command of a different ship, the Cymric, and was disappointed that he ended up being assigned to the Titanic instead. Just days before the voyage, he wrote a letter to his sister.

I still don’t like this ship…. I have a queer feeling about it.

After the disaster, some people pointed to an 1898 novel as another early warning.

Novelist Morgan Robertson wasn’t talking about the Titanic when he wrote those words. He was talking about the Titan, the fictional ship in his 1898 novel Futility. The coincidences don’t end with the similar ship names. Robertson used the words “unsinkable” and “indestructible” to describe the Titan, which hit an iceberg in the story, killing nearly all three thousand people on board. Had he foretold the disaster? Probably not. But after the Titanic sank, people rediscovered Robertson’s book and pointed out the eerie similarities.

THEY SKIPPED THE TRIP

Not everyone with plans to sail on the Titanic’s maiden voyage ended up making the trip. Ship fireman Thomas Hart was supposed to be on board. In fact, he was among those listed as lost when the Titanic went down. The ship’s records show that he was on the 8:00 p.m.–12:00 a.m. watch the night the ship hit the iceberg. Hart’s mother was devastated…until Thomas showed up at home on May 8, alive and well. Turns out he never made it onto the ship.

Hart was all set to go but spent the night before he was supposed to leave in a pub and somehow lost his discharge book, which gave him permission to board. Apparently, it was found (or stolen?), since somebody used it to board the ship and was assigned to that watch. But Hart had no idea who might have ended up taking his place on the crew. He’d been afraid to tell the story about losing his discharge book, so he wandered around for a while before he went home. Even now, no one knows the identity of the person who boarded the ship—and died in the wreck—in Hart’s place.

Hart was one of around fifty-five people who had tickets to be on the Titanic but didn’t make it. Several people canceled when they found out they couldn’t get the kind of cabin they wanted. Henry Clay Frick didn’t go because his wife sprained her ankle. John Pierpont Morgan was going to use Frick’s ticket, but then he couldn’t go, either, because a business meeting popped up. Mr. and Mrs. E. W. Bill called off their trip after she had a dream about a shipwreck.

George W. Vanderbilt and his wife had tickets, too, but canceled when George’s mom told him that maiden voyages of anything were a bad idea. “So uncomfortable,” she said. “So much can go wrong.” So the Vanderbilts didn’t go. Their luggage went, though, along with a servant named Frederick Wheeler, who was sent to tend the bags and died in the disaster.

WHO’S WHO: A TITANIC YEARBOOK

Here are some of the most famous players in the story of the Titanic.

THOMAS ANDREWS was the Harland and Wolff shipbuilder who made the plans for the Titanic and the Olympic. He was on the maiden voyage and went down with the ship he’d designed.

First-class passenger JOHN JACOB ASTOR was an American millionaire—one of the richest men in the world at the time. His fortune was worth an estimated $90 million to $150 million in 1912. (In today’s dollars, that would make him a billionaire!) Astor didn’t survive the disaster. Workers found him with more than $2,000 when his body was recovered.

JOSEPH BOXHALL was an officer on board the Titanic. At the request of the captain, he figured out the ship’s exact position in the North Atlantic so that information could be shared in the distress call. Boxhall was put in charge of a lifeboat and survived, along with the passengers he saved.

HAROLD BRIDE was the Titanic’s junior wireless operator. He helped relay messages after the ship hit the iceberg and was among the last people to escape in a lifeboat.

MOLLY BROWN was a Titanic passenger who urged other frightened people to get into the lifeboats. The sailors in her boat were having trouble rowing, so she grabbed an oar and rallied the other women to help, too.

At nine weeks old, MILLVINA DEAN was the youngest passenger on board the Titanic. Her family was moving to America so her father could open a shop in Kansas. He died in the disaster, but Millvina survived, along with her mother and brother.

FREDERICK FLEET was the Titanic lookout who rang the first alarm when the iceberg was spotted. He escaped in a lifeboat.

ROBERT HICHENS was the quartermaster at the wheel when the Titanic hit the iceberg. He’d tried to steer the ship away, but the warning had come too late, so the iceberg scraped the side of the ship. Hichens was put in charge of a lifeboat and survived.

BRUCE ISMAY was chairman of the White Star Line. He escaped from the sinking ship in one of the last lifeboats.

NOËL LESLIE, the Countess of Rothes, was another famous Titanic passenger. She was traveling with her cousin Gladys Cherry. The two women escaped in a lifeboat, helped the crew row, and reportedly tried to go back to look for survivors but were overruled by other passengers. Later, after Leslie helped care for survivors on the rescue ship, London’s Daily Sketch newspaper reported that crew members were calling her “the plucky little countess.” (Men didn’t always speak with much respect for women who took charge of things back then.)

CHARLES LIGHTOLLER was a Titanic officer who launched lifeboats after the collision. He was the senior surviving officer, so he ended up being the ship’s spokesperson after the wreck.

STANLEY LORD was captain of the Californian, a nearby ship that was trapped by ice. Some on the ship might have witnessed the Titanic sinking. After the wreck, Lord was criticized for not coming to the Titanic’s aid more quickly.

LORD JOHN CHARLES BIGHAM MERSEY was the head of the British inquiry into the Titanic disaster.

JAMES MOODY was an officer on duty on the bridge when the Titanic hit the iceberg. He died when the ship went down.

WILLIAM M. MURDOCH was first officer in charge the night of the wreck. He tried—too late—to keep the ship from hitting the iceberg and did not survive.

JOHN “JACK” PHILLIPS was the Titanic’s senior wireless operator. He spent the night of the disaster trying to find another ship to help and died when the Titanic went down.

HERBERT PITMAN was a third officer on board the Titanic who helped launch lifeboats after the collision. He was put in charge of a lifeboat and survived.

CAPTAIN ARTHUR ROSTRON was captain of the Carpathia, the ship that rescued the Titanic’s survivors.

EDWARD J. SMITH was captain of the Titanic. He went down with his ship.

SENATOR WILLIAM ALDEN SMITH (no relation to Captain Smith) was the head of the US Senate investigation into the Titanic disaster.

ISIDOR and IDA STRAUS were passengers on the Titanic who didn’t survive the wreck. Isidor wouldn’t board a lifeboat until all the women and children on the ship were safe, and Ida refused to go without her husband.