TITANIC INFORMATION

Olympic

During the early 1920’s, Titanic’s sister ship, Olympic, had to be dry docked in Southampton. Her owners, the White Star Line specifically asked for David Wilson to oversee a portion of the procedure of manoeuvring the 46 thousand ton ship into the dockyard. Then in 1926, Wilson and his young family moved to a flat in Putney. To their complete surprise, they discovered that the flat was owned by none other than Charles Lightoller, second officer on board Titanic and the most senior of the crew to survive. Lightoller lived in the flat below and Wilson’s daughter, Maureen recalls that the two men had many conversations about what happened on Titanic in mid Atlantic.

David Wilson spent his later career at Royal Mail Liners, from where he retired in 1950. He died eleven years later at the age of 74. If he reflected on his lucky escape from Titanic, these were not sentiments which he aired in public. Gladys describes him as a gentle, quietly spoken, unassuming man.

But what happened to the plumbing blueprint which left Titanic at Cherbourg in his suitcase?

With Titanic’s loss, there was no further use for it and it was stored, still rolled up, in the bottom of a wardrobe. It survived four burglaries in different Wilson homes and the near miss of a bomb to the family home in London during World War Two. After his death in 1961, his wife passed the blue-print to his daughter for safekeeping and she in turn passed it to her son. In 2005, after a family consultation, it was decided to sell the blueprint through Aldridge’s, the famous auctioneers of Titanic memorabilia. It is understood it was sold to a Titanic collector in the South of England. Gladys concludes, “Uncle David would have been happy for the financial outcome to go towards his three great grandsons’ third level education." Gladys, who lives in Limavady, Northern Ireland is a member of the Belfast Titanic Society and attended last year’s centenary of the launch of RMS Olympic on the slipway in Titanic Quarter.

Titanic Survivor Story: Douglas Spedden

Douglas Spedden was a seven year old American boy who was travelling with his parents and his nanny aboard Titanic. The family was journeying home after a holiday in Algiers and Monte Carlo. The Speddens, Daisy and Frederic were wealthy New Yorkers with a home in the fashionable suburb of Tuxedo Park. They also had homes at Bar Harbor, Maine and wintered in European resorts such as Madeira. The family was travelling with a maid and Douglas’ nanny, Margaret Burns. The child could not pronounce his nanny’s name so he affectionately referred to her as Muddie Boons.

Journey

On April 10th the family boarded a train from Paris to Cherbourg where they were to board Titanic. The harbour at Cherbourg was too small to berth the Olympic and Titanic which had to moor offshore. First and second class passengers were taken on a specially built tender ship, the SS Nomadic. The journey took between half an hour and forty five minutes and passengers expected the same standards of luxury as they would encounter on the main vessel. The Speddens were in the company of some of the richest people in the world, including Colonel John Jacob Astor and his new wife, Madeleine, Benjamin Guggenheim and his entourage and the famous Unsinkable Molly Brown. 

Young Douglas is immortalised in Titanic history as the little boy playing with a spinning top on the deck of Titanic. This is a photograph taken by Jesuit priest, Father Francis Browne and published in his collection. The photograph was also brought to life in James Cameron’s film, Titanic. He also appears in a photograph taken on Titanic’s promenade deck in which he is looking out to sea while a crew member poses in the foreground. But the main memory of Douglas Spedden is recorded in the children’s book, “Polar, the Titanic Bear” which was written for Douglas by his mother as a present. It recounts the adventures of the boy’s beloved white teddy bear, Polar who was with him on Titanic.

Of a total of 2,223 people aboard Titanic only 706, less than a third, survived and 1,517 perished.The majority of deaths were caused by hypothermia in the 28 °F (−2 °C) water where death could occur in as little as 15 minutes.
Men and members of the 2nd and 3rd class were less likely to survive. Of the male passengers in second class, 92 percent perished. Less than a quarter of third-class passengers survived. Six of the seven children in first class survived, all of the children in second class survived, whereas less than half were saved in third class. 96 percent of the women in first class survived, 86 percent of the women survived in second class and less than half survived in third class. Overall, only 20 percent of the men survived, compared to nearly 75 percent of the women. Men in first class were four times as likely to survive as men in second class, and twice as likely to survive as those in third.
Four of the eight officers survived. About 21 of the 29 able seamen survived and all seven quartermasters and eight lookouts survived. Three of the 13 leading firemen survived, around 45 other firemen survived and around 20 of the 73 coal trimmers survived. Four of the 33 greasers survived and one of the six mess hall stewards survived. Around 60 of the 322 stewards and 18 of the 23 stewardesses survived. Three of the 68 restaurant staffs survived. All five postal clerks, guarantee group, and eight-member orchestra perished.
Another disparity is that a greater percentage of British passengers died than Americans; some sources suggest it was because Britons of the time were polite and queued, rather than forcing their way onto the lifeboats. The captain Edward John Smith was shouting: "Be British, boys, be British!" as the liner went down.

A Swede, Alma Pålsson, was travelling third class with four children aged under 10 to meet her husband; all died. "Pålsson's grief was the most acute of any who visited the offices of the White Star, but his loss was the greatest. His whole family had been wiped out."

The sailors aboard the ship CS Mackay-Bennett, which recovered bodies from Titanic, were upset by the discovery of a 19-month-old boy. They paid for a monument and he was buried on 4 May 1912 with a copper pendant placed in his coffin by the sailors that read "Our Babe". The boy was identified in 2007 as Sidney Leslie Goodwin.

Stewardess Violet Jessop, who had been on board RMS Olympic during the collision with HMS Hawke in 1911, went on to survive the sinking of HMHS Britannic in 1916.

The last living survivor was Millvina Dean from England, only nine weeks old at the time of the sinking. She died on 31 May 2009, the 98th anniversary of the launching of Titanic's hull.

There are many stories about dogs on Titanic. A crewman released the dogs from the ship's kennels before it went down; they were seen running on the decks. Two lap dogs survived with their owners in lifeboats.

Retrieval and burial of the dead

Once the massive loss of life became clear, White Star Line chartered the cable ship CS Mackay-Bennett from Halifax, Nova Scotia to retrieve bodies. Three other ships followed in the search, the cable ship Minia, the lighthouse supply ship Montmagny and the sealing vessel Algerine. Each ship left with embalming supplies, undertakers, and clergy. Of the 333 victims that were eventually recovered, 328 were retrieved by the Canadian ships and five more by passing North Atlantic steamships. Most of the bodies were numbered. The five passengers buried at sea by Carpathia went unnumbered.[85] In mid-May 1912, over 200 miles (320 km) from the site of the sinking, RMS Oceanic recovered three bodies, numbers 331, 332 and 333, who were among the original occupants of Collapsible A, which was swamped in the last moments of the sinking. Although several people managed to reach this lifeboat, three died during the night. When Fifth Officer Harold Lowe and six crewmen returned to the wreck site sometime after the sinking with an empty lifeboat to pick up survivors, they rescued a female from Collapsible A , but left the three dead bodies in the boat: Thomas Beattie, a first-class passenger, and two crew members, a fireman and a seaman. After their retrieval from Collapsible A by Oceanic, the bodies were then buried at sea.
The first body recovery ship to reach the site of the sinking, the cable ship CS Mackay-Bennett found so many bodies that the embalming supplies aboard were quickly exhausted. Health regulations permitted that only embalmed bodies could be returned to port. Captain Larnder of the Mackay-Bennett and undertakers aboard decided to preserve all bodies of First Class passengers, justifying their decision by the need to visually identify wealthy men to resolve any disputes over large estates. As a result the burials at sea were third class passengers and crew. Larnder himself claimed that as a mariner, he would expect to be buried at sea. However complaints about the burials at sea were made by families and undertakers. Later ships such as Minia found fewer bodies, requiring fewer embalming supplies, and were able to limit burials at sea to bodies which were too damaged to preserve.
Bodies recovered were preserved to be taken to Halifax, the closest city to the sinking with direct rail and steamship connections. The Halifax coroner, John Henry Barnstead, developed a detailed system to identify bodies and safeguard personal possessions. His identification system would later be used to identify victims of the Halifax Explosion in 1917. Relatives from across North America came to identify and claim bodies. A large temporary morgue was set up in a curling rink and undertakers were called in from all across Eastern Canada to assist. Some bodies were shipped to be buried in their home towns across North America and Europe. About two-thirds of the bodies were identified. Unidentified victims were buried with simple numbers based on the order in which their bodies were discovered. The majority of recovered victims, 150 bodies, were buried in three Halifax cemeteries, the largest being Fairview Lawn Cemetery followed by the nearby Mount Olivet and Baron de Hirsch cemeteries. Much floating wreckage was also recovered with the bodies, many pieces of which can be seen today in the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax. Other pieces are part of the travelling exhibition, Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition.

Fashion

Riches and luxury were fashionable during the “gilded age” of the early twentieth century, and first-class passage on the maiden voyage of a great transatlantic liner was among the heights of that fashion amongst the upper classes. The decor of Titanic’s accommodation replicated the high fashion of yesteryears. The famous grand staircase was in William and Mary style , but the balustrade was Louis XIV.

First Class Attire

The first-class dining saloon and reception room were Jacobean, the restaurant Louis XVI, the lounge Louis XV (Versailles), the reading and writing room late Georgian, the smoking room early Georgian. The gentlemen, and especially the ladies travelling first class, tried to honour their surroundings through their fashionable dress. In the palm room, for example, full dress was expected. Feminine finery encouraged the chivalry of the men, and that chivalry was to be sorely tested during the hours of the sinking of the ship.

First-class passengers may have been aware that on board was the well-known American fashion correspondent, Edith Russell, who was travelling with trunks full of French couturière for American clients. She later remembered what she was wearing when being evacuated from the sinking ship and what J. Bruce Ismay was wearing when he ordered her into a lifeboat.

Lady Duff Gordon

A week after the sinking, she recorded for Women’s Wear Daily Lady Duff Gordon’s apparel when leaving the doomed liner and their conversation about their respective costumes on board the rescue ship, Carpathia. Duff Gordon was “Lucile”, the celebrated couturière the foremost creator of fashions in the world who had opened a branch of her London business in New York. She also designed for London plays, a reminder of the theatrical aspects of Titanic’s first-class interior and passengers. Among those passengers were a famous Broadway producer, actress, novelist, short-story writer, painter, sculptor, journalists – those whose celebrity was itself fashionable. But scenes resembling costume drama were to end in the catastrophe of tragedy.

A Premier Fashion Designer

The fashion conscious amongst Titanic’s first class passengers will not have failed to notice the presence of Lady Lucille Duff Gordon amongst their number. Born in 1863, Lucy was the premier fashion designer of her day, famous in the main for her tea dresses, evening wear and lingerie. From humble beginnings and a failed marriage, she rose to become the It girl of her day with shops in fashionable parts of London and Paris. She had pioneered the idea of showcasing her collections at fashion shows and was one of the first to use models. In 1903, marriage to Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon, a Scottish landowner, secured her a place in the upper echelons of society, with a clientele to match. The only key client she failed to secure was the Queen. She was not accepted at court, probably because of her earlier divorce.

Taking Titanic to New York

Lady Lucille was travelling on Titanic to visit her New York boutique which she had opened in 1910. She and her husband travelled under the names Mr and Mrs Morgan, probably to avoid publicity. They needed to get there quickly to attend to urgent business. They had separate cabins and a third was booked for Lady Lucille’s maid. No doubt the first class ladies were taking careful note of what she wore during the day and to dinner.

Lifeboat Number 1

When disaster struck on Titanic, the Duff Gordon’s found themselves on board lifeboat number 1 which left with just twelve people on board. Scandal surrounded how Sir Cosmo had secured a place when so many third class women and children were left behind, particularly since there was a handover of money to the crew manning the lifeboat. The action was read by the press as a bribe, both for taking the couple on board and for not going back to rescue more people. However Sir Cosmo maintained it was to replace equipment which the crew members had lost and would be billed for. In any event, both the Duff Gordons were called to give evidence at the inquiry. 

Lady Lucille’s testimony drew the largest crowd of anyone who took the stand but she failed to shed much light on events, claiming she could not remember anything about that night. While Sir Cosmo’s reputation took a knock, his wife’s did not and she continued to run a successful fashion business. She designed costumes for the Ziegfeld Follies and was employing around a thousand people before World War One. Today, the great nephew of Sir Cosmo, Sir Andrew Duff Gordon is involved with the project to restore the SS Nomadic, Titanic’s tender ship used at Cherbourg. The couple had travelled on Nomadic to board Titanic at the French port.