INFORMATION
THE BEGINNING
On a summer night in 1907, Bruce Ismay, managing director of the White Star Line, and his wife Florence were having dinner at the Belgravia mansion, known as the Downshire House. This was the home of Lord James Pirrie, a partner in the firm of Harland and Wolff, the builder of all White Star vessels.
Both Ismay and Pirrie were allied together in the fight for dominance over the Atlantic passenger trade, their chief rival being the Cunard Line. The main topic of discussion that night concerned the new Cunard liner Lusitania. The huge passenger ship was expected to shatter the existing speed records on her maiden voyage. This would put Cunard ahead in the race for control of the Atlantic route. How was White Star to answer this new threat?
It is believed that during the dinner party that night Lord Pirrie and Ismay devised an ambitious plan. Using their combined power, they would create two enourmous liners with a third to follow. The ships, 50% larger each than the Lusitania and nearly 100 feet longer than her 790 feet, would be so huge that no shipyard in the world had a dry dock, crane, or gantry large enough to construct them. The focus of these new liners would not be speed but luxury and comfort. However, they would still be fast enough to complete the crossing from England to New York in a week's time.
Ismay and Pirrie quickly moved the idea for these great liners from dream to drawing board. Lord Pirrie's staff worked to create a practicable design while the Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast began the conversion of three berths into two. A 220-foot-high gantry, the largest in the world, was to be constructed over these slips.
The original design of the ships were that of three funnels. However, Pirrie felt that four would give the ships abetter overall look so the design was changed to accomodate four funnels.
Some of the initial plans for the ships were simple and some elaborate. First class, for example, was to have a huge lounge, a smoking room, a large reception room, two palm courts, and a reading room. The dining room was to be an enourmous three decks high, and topped by a glass dome. Lower in the ship there was to be a Turkish bath, swimming pool, and evening a gymnasium.
Eventually, some of these ideas were scaled down or eliminated, while others were enhanced. The gymnasium, instead of being lower in the ship, was moved to the top deck. The spa was reduced in size and two more elevators were added yielding a total of three for first class and, yet another first, one for the use of the second-class passengers.
The first keel plate of which was to become the Olympic, was laid down on December 16th, 1908. On March 31st, three months later, the first keel plate was laid down for the Titanic.
On October 20th, 1910, the Olympic was launched and towed to a fitting-out basin for completion. On May 31st, 1911, the Harland and Wolff shipyard was crowded with fascinated people who had come to watch the launch of the freshly painted Titanic. J.P. Morgan, Bruce Ismay and his daughter Margaret, Lord Pirrie and Lady Pirrie, the Lord Mayor of Belfast, and numerous other dignitaries stood on a grandstand, the 26,000 ton hull of the Titanic towering above them.
At the bow of the ship stood three more grandstands - two for ticketholders and another for over one hundred members of the press. Belfast's trolley cars were busy making special runs to Harland and Wolff to transport thousands of spectators to watch the special event. Even more people crammed the banks of the River Lagan, which had been dredged to accomodate the nearly thirty-five-foot draft of the Olympic and Titanic.
The Titanic was nearly indentical to the Olympic except that she was to be 1004 gross tons larger and more luxurious in several ways.
The Titanic was not christened, which was the custom for White Star and Harland and Wolff. At 12:05pm, two rockets were fired, followed by a third five minutes later. At 12:13, the hull began to move carried on by its own weight down the ways.
Suddenly the air was alive with sound - tugs blew their whistles, women waved their handkerchiefs and thousands of spectators cheered. The Titanic travelled twice her length of 900 feet, reaching a speed of 12 knots, before coming to a stop by six anchor chains and two piles of cable drag chains weighing 80 tons each.
It had required twenty-three tons of tallow, train oil, and soft soap to grease the ways for the Titanic launching. The whole process took only sixty-two seconds for the Titanic to complete her journey down the ways.
Once the Titanic was placed in her fitting-out basin, it took ten months and several million man-hours to complete her interiors. On February 3rd, 1912, the Titanic was dry-docked and her propellers were fitted on. A final coat of paint was then applied to her hull.
On April 2nd, 1912, the largest ship in the world set sail from Belfast for her sea trials and into history.
Because of the size of the Olympic class ships (of which the Titanic was a part of), White Star requested that the City of New York increase and extend the piers in the harbour. However, the city quickly refused arguing that longer piers would create a navigational nightmare. Morgan, who owned much of New York and who could greatly influence its economy, quietly persuaded the city council into accepting the request.
Mr. Morgan was scheduled to sail on the Titanic for her maiden in his own private suite. However, he cancelled his voyage at the last minute and was spared from the fate so many others would suffer.
And so the Titanic was born. Constructed by the Harland & Wolff shipping company, she was touted as being the safest, most luxurious ship ever created, as well as being the largest vessel of her time. Her interiors were luxurious and comparable to many of the finest hotels found in Europe. She had two elevators, a swimming pool, turkish bath, barber shop, gymnasium, and many other luxuries that were unheard of on a ship. She was truly a 'floating palace' as many of the passengers remarked.
Using an ingenious system of sixteen water-tight compartments in her hull and more lifeboats than current laws required, she was indeed a marvel to behold. In fact, a journalist even remarked that 'Not even God himself could sink this ship.'
On
April 4th, 1912, with great fanfare and over 2000 people aboard her, the
Titanic
left dock on her maiden voyage and sailed into history. She would not be
seen again for more than 70 years.
THE WHITE STAR LINE
The White Star Line was originally founded back in the 1850's. At that time, it consisted of sailing vessels travelling trade routes centred on Australian goldfields. Then, in 1867, White Star was purchased by Thomas Henry Ismay who was Bruce Ismay's father. At this time, White Star began to focus its efforts on the ever growing Atlantic Passenger routes.
The Cunard Lines, until now, had been virtually unchallenged in the Atlantic routes. However, with White Star's Baltic, which set the Atlantic speed record in 1873, Cunard finally had a worthy opponent. The two companies were in constant competition as each one released better and faster vessels. White Star was the first to introduce ships without sails, the Teutonic and the Majestic.
Bruce Ismay took over from his father after his death in 1899. In 1902, however, the company was sold to an American financier named J. Pierpoint Morgan but Ismay was allowed to retain his Directorship of the company and was also made Chairman and Managing Director.
Morgan was very interested in the passenger trade route across the Altantic and saw great opportunity there. Using his vast wealth, he financed the creation of what would be the some of the greatest ships ever created: The Olympic Class liners Olympic, Titanic, and Brittanic.
1911, May 31: The hull of the Titanic is successfully launched.
1912, March 31: The outfitting of the Titanic is completed.
1912, April 10: Sailing day.
1912, April 14: Seven ice warnings received during the day.
1912,
April 18: Carpathia arrives
in New York City with survivors.
1912,
April 19: The U.S. Senate
Inquiry led by Michigan Senator William Smith opens at New York's Waldorf-Astoria.
The inquiry recommends that the number of lifeboats be increased and a
24-hour radio watch be established on all ships.
1912, April 21: The Mackay-Bennett recovers the first of 306 bodies, including J. J. Astor's. Unclaimed victims are buried at sea or in Halifax, Nova Scotia, cemeteries.
1912: Makers of the first film documentary about the wreck gamely pass off footage of the Olympic at her New York dock as the Titanic.
1912, May 3: The British Inquiry, the Mersey Commission, convenes in London. It blames Californian Captain Stanley Lord for not coming to the Titanic's aid.
1912, May 14: First film drama about the sinking, Saved From the Titanic, is released one month after the collision. It stars Dorothy Gibson, a silent screen star who was an actual survivor of the disaster.
1912, June: Titanic's last body is recovered. The remains of First-Class Saloon steward W.F. Cheverton are buried at sea by the steamer Ilford.
1912, August: Madeleine Astor gives birth to a son. She names him for her husband lost in the sinking. Also that month Stanley Lord resigns his position with the Leyland Line as a result of the Mersey Commission findings.
1914: An article in Popular Mechanics concerning underwater photography predicts survivors' children might one day see pictures of the wreck. It is considered highly unlikely.
1915: Morgan Robertson, the author of Futility, the eerily prescient book about a similar sea disaster, dies poor and forgotten.
1916: The Britannic, Titanic's sister, in service as a hospital ship during World War One, strikes a German mine in the Aegean Sea and sinks within an hour.
1917: The Californian is torpedoed by a German submarine in World War One and sinks.
1918: The Carpathia is torpedoed by a German submarine in World War One and sinks.
1932: Molly Brown dies in New York City at age 65.
1934: The Great Depression forces a merger between the White Star and Cunard lines.
1935: The Olympic is sold for scrap.
1937: J. Bruce Ismay dies.
1940: Madeline Astor dies in Palm Beach. She had been married to an Italian prize fighter.
1943: The German film Titanic, a drama about the sinking, is a propaganda vehicle for the Nazis. The film's hero is a German, and the villains are English and Jewish business interests.
1952: Titanic's Second Officer Charles Lightoller dies at age 78.
1953: 20th Century Fox releases Titanic starring Barbara Stanwyck and Clifton Webb. The ship model used in the filming is now on display at the Marine Museum in Fall River, Mass.
1955: Walter Lord publishes A Night to Remember. The classic exposes new generations to the Titanic legend.
1958: A Night to Remember becomes a British film starring Kenneth More, Honor Blackman, and a young David McCallum as telegraph operator Harold Bride.
1960: The musical The Unsinkable Molly Brown opens on Broadway.
1964: The film version of the musical The Unsinkable Molly Brown is released starring Debbie Reynolds as the eponymous Coloradan.
1965: Frederick Fleet, the lookout who was the first person to see the iceberg, dies in Southampton at 76. He sold newspapers on street corners in that town.
1965: Irwin Allen's sci-fi program Time Tunnel debuts on TV with the episode Rendezvous With Yesterday that has scientists James Darren and Robert Colbert landing on the Titanic.
1967: Survivor schoolmaster Lawrence Beesley, who was praised for his written account of the disaster, dies at age 89.
1973: In the hit British TV series Upstairs, Downstairs, Lady Bellamy sails on the Titanic and drowns.
1977: Author Clive Cussler's Raise the Titanic becomes a best-selling novel.
1979: The ship becomes a TV mini-series. S.O.S. Titanic stars include Cloris Leachman as Molly Brown and Helen Mirren as stewardess Mary Sloane.
1980: Raise the Titanic becomes a film starring Jason Robards, Anne Archer, and Alec Guinness. It flops.
1981: Terry Gilliam's film classic Time Bandits features the Titanic.
1985, September 1: Scientist Dr. Robert Ballard and Jean Louis Michel discover the Titanic wreck site.
1986-1994: Numerous expeditions retrieve artifacts from the wreck site. Critics accuse the salvage operations of grave-robbing. Supporters of the recovery efforts say they are preserving history and trying to answer unresolved questions about the disaster.
1990: Renowned science-fiction author Arthur C. Clarke publishes a novel about raising the Titanic--Ghost of the Grand Banks.
1991: Romance writer Danielle Steele publishes No Greater Love. The potboiler opens with the ship's sinking.
1995: In their book The Titanic Conspiracy, Robin Gardiner and Dan Van Der Vat allege the Titanic was switched with the Olympic in an insurance scam before the Titanic's maiden voyage.
1995: The book From Time to Time by Jack Finney places a time traveler onboard the Titanic searching for Major Archibald Butt.
1995, February: Titanic reconstruction begins in digital dry dock at CyberFlix Studios in Knoxville, Tennessee.
1996: Eva Hart, the last survivor with articulate memories of the sinking, dies in England at age 91.
1996: Production begins on 20th Century Fox's second movie about the disaster. Titanic, directed by James Cameron and starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, will premiere in 1997. It is reported to cost $100 million.
1996: CBS-TV launches a Titanic mini-series for the November sweeps.
1996, August 26: An expedition to the wreck site--tries, but fails--to bring up an 11-ton piece of the hull.
1996, November 12: Titanic: Adventure Out of Time debuts, the most complete restoration of the ship available in 3D.
1997, April: An exhibition of Titanic artifacts opens in April in Memphis, Tennessee. Another exhibition is planned for Germany later in the year.
Length: Approximately 882 feet or 268 metres
Engines: Two four cylinder reciprocating inverted engines producing 30,000hp @ 75rpm. One Parsons turbine (low pressure) producing 16,000hp @ 165 rpm
Boilers: 29 in total
Propellers: 3 in total. Left & Right outermost screws: 23 feet - Centre screw: 16 feet
Top Speed: Approximately 23 knots
Decks: 9 in total
Lifeboats: 16 large wooden lifeboats with a capacity of 76 people, 4 collapsibles (20 in total)
Beam: Approx. 92 feet/28 meters
Classes:1st, 2nd, 3rd/Steerage
Passengers:329 1st class, 285 2nd class, 710 3rd class
Crew:899