The TITANIC was built at a cost of £1½ million, in Belfast, for the White Star shipping line. She was the largest passenger steamer of her day, at over 46,000 tons, and supposedly the most up to date. Special watertight compartments made her "practically unsinkable", claimed the owners. They also advertised the luxurious First Class accommodation, with large state-rooms, a Parisian café, a swimming pool and restaurant. She set sail from Southampton on her maiden voyage on Wednesday, April 10^th, 1912, calling at Cherbourg in France and Queenstown in southern Ireland before heading out across the Atlantic, on course for New York. Late on the night of Sunday April 14^th she struck an iceberg and was holed below the waterline. Less than three hours later she sank. Only 705 people were rescued from over 2,200 on board.

(USC = United States Citizen)

Thomas Andrews was the designer of the TITANIC; Colonel JJ Astor was one of the richest men in the world, worth over £20 million; Major Butt was an adviser to the US President Taft.

1a. Read through list 1a. What clues are there from this list that this is the First Class passenger list, not the Third?
1b. Read through List 1b. What countries have these people come from?
1c. What clues are there that List 1b is the Third Class list, not the First Class?

2a. Compare the two types of accommodation shown here. Write three sentences to describe the differences.
2b. What does this tell you about differences between rich and poor at that time?

(Ulster Folk and Transport Museum)

3.Look at the information on the table, Document 3.
3a. Where did most people embark?

3b. Which class of passenger made up the majority of those embarking at Cherbourg?

3c. Which class of passenger made up the majority of those embarking at Queenstown?

3d. Which class of passenger were in a majority of all those on board when the TITANIC set off for New York?

3e. Look at the title of the document on which the table is based. What does this tell you about who all these steerage passengers were?

4.Read Document 4.
4a. When was it received?

4b. If you were the wireless operator on the BIRMA, how would you report this message to the Captain?

4c. If you were the Captain of the BIRMA, what would you do?

MGY was the codename for the TITANIC

5. The TITANIC has the reputation of being a luxury ship. Is this reputation justified?

6. 705 of those on board the TITANIC when she struck the iceberg survived. Of the survivors:
381 were cabin class passengers, including all the children in this class,
270 were steerage passengers, including 26 of the children in this class,
52 were crew.
What does this tell you about the safety arrangements for different types of passengers?

Steamships

The first ship to cross the Atlantic by steam power alone was the SIRIUS, in 1838, taking 18 days to make the journey. However, early iron steamships were inefficient and the next fifty years saw the last flowering of ocean-going sailing vessels. Only the invention of the steam turbine in 1884 and production of cheap steel enabled steam to overtake sail at last. In the opening years of the 20^th century a new design of vessel, the "liner" appeared. They were much bigger and faster, with more carrying capacity: the MAURETANIA crossed the Atlantic in less than five days in 1907. More space meant more room for passengers to travel in luxury and, until air travel superceded them in the 1950s, the Atlantic liner was the last word in comfortable, speedy travel. The publicity given to the quality of First Class accommodation on the TITANIC was therefore typical.

Emigrants

Throughout the 19^th century millions of Europeans left the continent for new lands in Australia, South America, Africa and, especially, North America. The peak was reached in the first decade of the 20^th century, when 11 million Europeans crossed the Atlantic to settle in the USA, 3.2 million of them from the UK and Ireland.

Not surprisingly, emigrants were usually poor: one of their main reasons for emigrating was to build a better life in America, which was seen as a "land of opportunity". Back in the 19^th century, shipowners had crammed emigrants below decks with inadequate facilities in order to keep fares low. The White Star Line, ironically, was one of the first to offer decent, although still cheap, accommodation to emigrant passengers.

Afterwards

The sinking of the TITANIC with the loss of 1500 lives caused an uproar on both sides of the Atlantic. Newspapers blamed the owners for inadequate safety arrangements. Others blamed the captain for going too fast and too carelessly in waters known to be iceberg-infested.

An enquiry in the US Senate fixed on the fact that there were not enough lifeboats for the number of passengers, although the owners certainly provided more than they were required to by law at the time. It was also pointed out that not all the lifeboats that were on board could be launched in the time it took to sink. Many passengers anyway refused to get into the lifeboats, some of which left the ship half full.

Safety regulations had not caught up with these new massive liners and were rapidly changed. A new regulation of 1913 required all vessels to carry enough lifeboats for every passenger. An iceberg patrol was set up by the US Coastguard.

In the last fifteen years the wreck of the TITANIC has been located on the Atlantic Ocean floor and some items have been retrieved from it.

For more information on the Titanic, try the following websites:

Encyclopedia Britannica exhibition on the Titanic

Contemporary images of the Titanic