RMS Titanic (1909-1912)

A blog dedicated to facts and information about the world's most famous ocean liner.

[rmstitanicfacts]

DID YOU KNOW: Titanic’s surviving wireless operator became a salesman in Glasgow after the sinking? The sinking of the Titanic severely rattled Harold Bride (at right, with Guglielmo Marconi during the U.S. Inquiry), so much so that he made up his mind to leave the service of the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company. In 1922, Bride gave his notice, and moved to Scotland with his wife, Lucy. Three children, two daughters and a son, were born throughout the 1920′s. Always having valued his privacy - and still carrying deep emotional scars from the sinking of the Titanic - Harold Bride disappeared into anonymity, and virtually nothing else is known of his life post-Titanic. 

Bride died of lung cancer in 1956 at the age of 66.

[rmstitanicfacts]

Charles Joughin, the chief baker of RMS Titanic, photographed during his service aboard RMS Baltic prior to the sinking of the Titanic.

Photograph: Unknown

[rmstitanicfacts]

DID YOU KNOW: part of the reason for John Jacob Astor’s divorce from his first wife, Ava, was her obsession with the card game ‘bridge?’ Ava Astor was notoriously obsessed with the game - playing it for hours with her close friends and relatives, driving the adrenaline-junkie ‘Jack’ to fits of impatience with her. Most famously, Astor would be left waiting for nearly an hour for meals as Ava and her friends finished their bridge game before racing to change for dinner, turning up sometimes over an hour late in the dining room. The couple divorced in 1909, and Astor married Madeleine Force in September of 1911.

[rmstitanicfacts]

Mrs. Margaret Brown, first class passenger aboard the RMS Titanic in an undated photograph.

Photograph: Unknown, George Bain Collection - Library of Congress

[rmstitanicfacts]

DID YOU KNOW: there is an award-winning musical about the sinking of the Titanic? “Titanic: The Musical,” with music and lyrics by Maury Yeston and book by Peter Stone, opened on Broadway at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on April 23, 1997 - though it would rapidly be overshadowed by James Cameron’s film as the most important Titanic-related entertainment of the year.

Yeston and Stone’s show portrays the passengers and crew of Titanic very respectfully, and does not go out of its way in an effort to incite controversy. For the most part, the show is historically accurate - and featured remarkable technical engineering, including the installation of a hydraulic lift beneath the stage to allow the stage to pitch and yaw to represent the angle of the sinking ship.

“Titanic” won every Tony Award it was nominated for - including “Best Musical,” but closed as a financial loss in March of 1999 after 804 performances.

[rmstitanicfacts]

A ticket to the launch of RMS Titanic on May 31, 1911, at the Harland and Wolff Shipyards.

[rmstitanicfacts]

DID YOU KNOW: the myth that there was a mummy aboard the Titanic that cursed its maiden voyage can be traced back to a man who was a victim of the sinking? William T. Stead, the English journalist and peace advocate, had a notorious habit of telling tall tales to enthrall his audiences in personal conversation. Stead invented a story of a mummy he had purchased from the British Museum due to its “unlucky nature,” he informed his fellow diners at his table in the First Class dining saloon, and was transporting it to America with him aboard Titanic. 

The entire story was false - Stead, a devout believer in mysticism and the occult - concocted a horror story about the cursed mummy of the High Priestess of Amun around 1900, and gleefully fed the information to reporters - who didn’t deign to fact-check the story with The British Museum, which could, of course, have told them that they had no such mummy in their possession, only the lid to the sarcophagus of the High Priestess had been recovered.

Nonetheless, Stead revived his tale at dinner on April 12 aboard Titanic - drawing out the story to build suspense and awe among his listeners before informing them that he had had the mummy smuggled aboard Titanic, concluding his tale shortly after midnight on April 13. One of Stead’s dinner companions who survived the sinking would remember his story a few days after the sinking, and informed the press of “the curse of the priestess.”

[rmstitanicfacts]

An undated photograph of the prow of an Olympic-class liner in the Thompson Graving Dock at Harland and Wolff Shipyards. It is unclear which sister ship this is - Olympic, Titanic, or Britannic.

Photograph: Unknown

[rmstitanicfacts]

DID YOU KNOW: the U.S. Senator who led the inquiry into the sinking of the Titanic had a history of clashing with J.P. Morgan, Titanic’s owner? While serving in the United States House of Representatives, William Alden Smith had been the chairman of the Committee on Pacific Railroads in the 57th and 58th Congress. While chairman of that committee, he had been a vocal supporter of enacting universal safety regulations on railroads, making him many powerful enemies - including J.P. Morgan, the influential and obscenely wealthy Wall Street tycoon. Morgan either outright owned or was a stockholder in a total of 24 railroads across the country - including the New York Central Railroad and the Pennsylvania Railroad. Morgan is known to have been irritated at Smith’s lobbying for - and eventual success in passing - universal railroad safety standards. 

When Smith was appointed the chairman of the Senate’s special investigative committee for the sinking of the Titanic, he once again came into conflict with Morgan - who sought to protect his company, the International Mercantile Marine, which owned the White Star Line, from any liability for the sinking.

[rmstitanicfacts]

A 1914 illustration of the sinking of the RMS Titanic from The Graphic Supplement of London.

Artist: Charles Dixon

[rmstitanicfacts]

DID YOU KNOW one of Titanic’s first class passengers was a world-renowned fashion designer of controversial womens’ lingerie? Lucy Duff-Gordon, popularly known as “Lady Lucille” after her coterie line, was one of the most famous designers of women’s fashion in the world in 1912. Highly controversial due to her designing women’s dresses with revealing necklines and short skirts, Lucille’s designs were risque but popular - taking the Paris fashion world by storm in the early Twentieth Century. ‘Lucille’ was the world’s first global fashion brand, with boutiques in London, Paris, New York, and Chicago.

Duff-Gordon is also credited with the creation of the “mannequin parade,” wherein women would don Lucille’s designs and parade around a stage to show them off. Thus, Lucy Duff-Gordon invented the fashion show. She popularized less-restrictive corsets and sexually-charged women’s lingerie, thus forcing her to often travel under an alias due to wishing to avoid negative press. Aboard Titanic, the Duff-Gordons traveled as “Mr. and Mrs. Morgan.”

Lucy’s sister, the romance novelist Elinor Glyn, is also popularly credited by linguists as being the origin of using the word “it” to refer to sex.

[rmstitanicfacts]

First Class Passenger Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon, who was accused of bribing the crewmen in his lifeboat not to return for survivors. Duff-Gordon, a Silver Medalist at the 1906 Olympics in Fencing, never lived down the scorn and derision placed on him for the alleged bribery.

Photograph: Unknown, Used in The Daily Sketch newspaper on April 24, 1912

[rmstitanicfacts]

DID YOU KNOW: Titanic’s Fifth Officer, Harold Lowe, had to issue a formal apology to the Italian Ambassador to the United States? During his testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce’s special investigative subcommittee, Lowe referred to men who actively sought to save themselves from the sinking Titanic as “a bunch of Italians,” and several times used the term ‘Italian’ as a synonym for ‘coward’ during his testimony. Lowe’s statements were denounced in the press by the Italian Ambassador, and Lowe made his apology in person to Guido di Vincenzo, the embassy’s legal aide, on April 30, 1912.

[rmstitanicfacts]

The First Class Smoking Room aboard RMS Olympic, sister ship to RMS Titanic. The only difference between the two rooms was the painting above the mantle.

Photograph: Robert Welch (1859-1936)

[rmstitanicfacts]

DID YOU KNOW: Second Class passengers aboard Titanic traveled in comfort typically reserved for First Class on other lines’ vessels? Titanic - and its sister ship, Olympic - boasted general rooms and facilities for Second Class that could rival First Class aboard their chief rivals, the Cunard Line’s Lusitania and Mauretania. Second Class’ cabins were also comfortably reminiscent of hotel rooms, rather than dormitories, according to many sources.

[rmstitanicfacts]

A copy of one of the last wireless messages from the sinking RMS Titanic.

“CQD SOS SOS CQD CQD - MGY. We are sinking fast. Passengers are being put into boats. MGY.”

[rmstitanicfacts]

DID YOU KNOW: many newspapers around the world simply couldn’t believe Titanic had sunk? Even days after the sinking - when the Carpathia had confirmed the news to the world of the loss of 1,500 lives - some newspapers (such as this April 16 headline) continued to proclaim to the world that all had been saved, and the ship was still afloat. It would take until the arrival of the Carpathia in New York on April 18 to silence these optimists.