TITANIC PICTURES

Titanic

When the British ship Titanic steamed out of Southampton bound for New York on April 10, 1912, it was the largest and most sumptuous luxury liner that had ever sailed. It was a monument to the promise of technology and to Victorian elegance, magnificently appointed with oriental carpets and crystal chandeliers. It was thought to be unsinkable.
Confidence was so high that the owners and builders rejected plans calling for as many as 64 lifeboats. Although the number of lifeboats on the Titanic exceeded government standards, the boats would only accommodate about half of the 2,228 people aboard. In one of history's great ironies, the Titanic sank on its maiden voyage, after colliding with an iceberg off the banks of Newfoundland. More than 1,500 people died in the accident.
Transatlantic liners were so-called because they made a “line voyage” between points A and B. Titanic sailed from Southampton on April 10th, 1912, but called at Cherbourg in France and Queenstown (now Cobh) in Ireland to take on more passengers. She then began her maiden voyage proper across the Atlantic towards New York.

Floating Towns

Such ships had been compared to floating towns, so preparations for departure were elaborate and painstaking, especially for a maiden voyage. Final provisions and crane-loads of luggage were put on board. Then came the arrival of hundreds of crew members – including officers, firemen, stewards, chefs, nurses, orchestra members, lift-boys, barbers, bakers, window-cleaners and seamen (some crewmen were late and luckily for them were prohibited from coming on board. ) There was also a special focus of activity. Thomas Andrews, who had embarked at 6.30 a.m. on the day of departure, moved around the ship for six hours, inspecting and taking notes before giving the ship a clean bill of health.

Visit From an Author

A year before Olympic’s keel was laid, the author of Dracula, Bram Stoker, visited the Harland & Wolff shipyard and saw for himself how these huge ships were built.

In “the biggest and finest and best established” shipyard in the world, “there is omnipresent evidence of genius and forethought; of experience and skill; of organisation complete and triumphant”.

High praise indeed! He reported with near disbelief that all 12,000 men who worked in Harland & Wolff in 1907 were paid their weekly wages on Friday afternoons in ten minutes! Apart from an educated professional class of engineers and, draughtsmen, there was in Belfast a working-class elite that shipbuilders both created and drew upon, an “aristocracy of labour”, as one commentator put it, made up of expert workers achieving their skill from daytime training and night-time education. Many of the riveters, sheet-metal workers, boilermakers, fitters, turners and other skilled workers lived in the streets which lay in the shadow of the shipyard where they practised their trade.

It is fair to say that the city of Belfast built Titanic.