The RMS Titanic was the largest passenger liner in the world, and the the pride of the White Star Line. She was designed to transform trans-Atlantic travel. Passengers would sail in unparalleled luxury and safety. Sea travel would never be the same again, but few at the time could have guessed why. On 10 April, 1912, she set sail on her maiden voyage bound for New York. It was to be her last. No one could have imagined what was to be her fate. For with the Titanic people believed that Man had at last the conquered the Oceans. Though she had never been described as unsinkable with her many safety features that including automatically locking doors that could be sealed at the press of a button she was widely believed to be so. It was known that any four of her compartments could be flooded and she would still float. As a result the procurement of lifeboats hardly seemed a priority. She in fact had 16 lifeboats and 4 collapsibles enough capacity for around half of the 2,240 people on board, if full. This was actually more than was required by the Board of Trade and when it was suggested that she should carry more the owners dismissed the idea claiming that they had done all that was required by law. As such, though there have been greater maritime disasters none has ever come as a greater shock. 

RMS Titanic, in all her glory

The portents appeared bad from the very outset when she almost collided with the liner New York as she was preparing to leave port. Disaster was only diverted when a tugboat managed to pull the New York away at the last moment. The Titanic’s Captain, Edward J Smith, was praised for his swift action during this incident, but it was no less than people would have expected from this most venerable of Master Mariners. At the age of 62, Edward Smith was  one of the most experienced Captains then serving, indeed he was a Commodore of the White Star Line. He was due to retire at the end of The Titanic’s maiden voyage and his captaincy was felt to be a fitting tribute to both the man and the ship.

Captain Edward J Smith

On board the Titanic were some of the most prominent people of the age including the billionaires John Jacob Astor and Benjamin Guggenheim, the founder of Macy’s Department Store Isidore Straus and his wife Ida. Also aboard was the White Star Line’s Managing Director J Bruce Ismay and the Titanic’s designer Thomas Andrews, who was there to assess the ships performance.

Everything had gone smoothly, though some passengers later reported that the ship had seemed to be going particularly fast, and one stated that she heard J Bruce Ismay tell Captain Smith to go even faster the following day. This cannot be verified but it would seem a strange decision particularly as calls were constantly coming in reporting Icebergs in the area. These were only intermittently reported to the bridge as the radio operators Jack Phillips and Harold Bride were inundated with messages from passengers. Just before going off watch at around 9.30 pm, Second Officer Charles Lightoller told his replacement William Murdoch to inform the Crow’s Nest to keep a close watch for small ice-floes. At 11.40 pm on the 14 April, 1912, the lookout Frederick Fleet spotted an Iceberg straight ahead, he sounded the ships bell and contacted the bridge with the shouted message, “Iceberg, right ahead!” First Officer Murdoch, who was still in charge of the bridge at the time, immediately ordered hard-a-starboard and slowed the engines. This was standard procedure but it was to turn out to be a mistake for had the Titanic struck the Iceberg head-on, with its automatically locking bulkhead doors, it may well have survived. As it turned out the Iceberg cut a a deep gash along the side of the ship and water rushed in flooding the first five watertight compartments. The weight of water meant the ship began to lay low at the bow allowing the sea to flood in over the other bulkheads regardless of whether they had been closed or not. The ship was doomed. Captain Smith, alerted to the danger, now rushed to the bridge. He ordered that the engines be shut down and asked the ships designer Thomas Andrews to inspect the damage. He returned a short time later and confirmed that the Titanic would indeed sink and he gave her 2 hours at most. Captain Smith ordered that the lifeboats be lowered and that it was to be women and children first, but he did not give the order to abandon ship, not wanting to panic the passengers. In the meantime, Jack Phillips in the radio room was sending out a CQD message (the distress code at the time) and frantically trying to contact any nearby ships without much success, this was later changed to SOS, the new distress code, on the advice of Harold Bride, it was the first time it was ever used.

Because the order to abandon ship had not been given the passengers and many of the crew remained largely unaware of the gravity of the situation. It was a freezing cold night being -2 degrees and it was difficult to persuade the women to leave the cosiness and apparent safety of the Titanic with their children to float around on an open boat in mid-Atlantic. As a result many of the lifeboats were launched only a half or quarter full. On the port side Second Officer Lightoller was a strict adherent to the order women and children first. At one point he even threatened to use a gun he had been given to maintain order should a panic ensue, to force men to abandon a boat. Only crewmen were allowed onto the boats to serve as oarsmen. On the starboard side First Officer Murdoch permitted men to board the lifeboats if no women were present.

The nearest ship to respond to Phillips’s increasingly frantic distress calls was the SS Carpathia, but it was 58 miles away and wouldn’t arrive for at least another 4 hours, that would be too late. Even so, its Captain Arthur Rostrom immediately set a course for Titanic’s last known position, steering at full-steam ahead throught the dangerous ice-floes. But there was another ship nearby, maybe as close as 5 miles distant. This ship has never been identified, but Charles Boxhall later testified that it got so close that he could see its sidelights with his naked eye and that at the time it was steaming towards Titanic. Some have claimed that this was the steamship Californian. Its Captain, Stanley Lord, was later made the scapegoat at the resultant Inquiry into the disaster.

Unable to hail the nearby ship by radio or morse lamp, Captain Smith ordered Boxhall to launch the distress rockets at five minute intervals. The ship failed to respond and was then seen to turn around and steam away. Meanwhile, Captain Lord, who was in bed at the time was informed that rockets had been seen in the night sky. He asked his Chief Officer if he thought they were distress rockets, when he received an unequivocal answer he ordered that they try to contact the ship by morse lamp, keep an eye, and went back to sleep. He didn’t order that the Californian’s radio operator also be roused from his slumbers and try to make contact. At 02.15 am he was woken again and informed that the ship could no longer be seen, but he did nothing. It wasn’t until 05.30 am that the Californian at last responded. It was later shown that even if Captain Lord had responded immediately it was unlikely that the Californian could have arrived in time. Even so, his tardy response to other mariners in peril at sea was to haunt him for the rest of his life.

The Californian, however, had been static at sea. Captain Lord had ordered a full stop in the middle of the ice-floes until daybreak. She could not therefore have been the ship that was seen to be steaming away from the Titanic. It was later claimed that this ship was the Norwegian Whaler Sampson that had been fishing illegally. This has never been proved, however. 

Back on board the Titanic Jack Phillip’s continued to send distress calls and the crewmen in the boiler room continued to stoke the fires to ensure the lights remained on for as long as possible. By 1 am most of the lifeboats had been launched. Ida Straus refused to board one of the last lifeboats despite her husband’s insistence that she should do so. She told him, “We have lived together for many years. Where you go, I go.” They both drowned.  John Jacob Astor, helped his pregnant wife aboard a lifeboat and then politely asked, given his wife’s delicate condition, whether he could join her. Second Officer Lightoller refused until all the women and children had been safely evacuated. He quietly left the scene, his body was never recovered. Benjamin Guggenheim, and his manservant made no effort to escape the ship. They both helped women and children into the lifeboats and then retired to their cabins and changed into their best clothes. He told a crewman, “We’ve dressed up in our best, and are prepared to go down like gentlemen.” Thomas Andrews, who was still often seen with the plans to the ship tucked under his arm, spent his time explaining to people the urgency of boarding the lifeboats. He was last seen staring vacantly at a portrait of Plymouth Sound, he was never seen again.

The Titanic was by now sinking fast and her bow had risen high out of the water. At last the Third Class passengers were released from steerage. The last of the lifeboats had by this time already been launched. They were later reported to have panicked and the cruel rumour persisted for many years that the Anglo-Saxons had behaved well but the Jews and Italians had sullied the whole affair with their cowardice. If they did indeed panic it was hardly surprising, having been kept below as the ship was listing and sinking, in partial light, with water up to their knees. It was said that shots were fired to keep them in order.

As it was becoming increasingly evident that the ship was about to sink stranded passengers began to throw themselves into the sea, but with the water temperature well below freezing life expectancy was less than 20 minutes. Second Officer Lightoller was still on the Titanic as she sank, as the waves lapped over her decks he simply swam away. He found an upturned collapsible and clambered aboard. Also clinging to the collapsible were Harold Bride and Jack Phillips. Phillips had continued to send distress calls until the very last moment and Bride said later that, “he learned to love that man,” in those final moments. Phillips did not survive. Fourth Officer Boxhall was put in charge of lifeboat No 2 that left the Titanic at 1.45 am just before she sank. It had only 18 people aboard out of a capacity of 40. First Officer Murdoch went down with the ship though it has long been rumoured that he committed suicide. 

By 2.05 am the Titanic’s entire bow was out of the water, by 2.20 am she had gone. It was said that the ship’s band were playing “Nearer Thy God To Thee” as she went down. None of the bandmembers survived. Captain Edward Smith was last seen helping a young child into a boat before being washed of the deck. He was spotted in the sea near a collapsible but swam away from it. His body was never recovered. J Bruce Ismay, the Managing Director of the White Star Line, procured himself a place in a lifeboat and survived. He became overnight one of the most despised men in the world. It was said that he had even disguised himself as a woman. It was a scurrilous suggestion but his survival was seen as an act of cowardice, and flew in the face of Captain Smith’s demand, “to be British!” Ismay’s life remained good but his reputation was ruined. When in later years a horse he owned won the prestigious Derby Horse Race it was disqualified, for no other reason that it was owned by J Bruce Ismay.

Few of the lifeboats returned to pick up survivors afraid of being swamped. Those that did only did so when the screams and cries of those struggling in the water had died away. Only 7 survivors were plucked from the water, 2 of whom later died. The Carpathia arrived at 04.10 am and began to pick up the survivors in the lifeboats. 

Of the 2,240 passengers aboard, 1,517 drowned. Only a few hundred bodies were ever recovered. There was hardly an equitable class balance amongst the survivors: 60.5% of First Class passengers survived, 41.7% of Second Class, and only 24.5% of Steerage. Inquiries were held in both New York and London. The London Inquiry under the stewardship of Lord Mersey was a whitewash. The White Star Line were not held to be culpable and the sinking of the Titanic was designated a tragic accident. Even so, the rules on lifeboat capacity were changed to ensure that in future they would cater for all on board, and there were no longer to be class distinctions in any future evacuation.

The city of Southampton, the port from which the Titanic had set sail on her tragic maiden voyage, was devasted. More than 500 households had lost someone on the Titanic, more often than not the family breadwinner. As the White Star Line was not found culpable the families received no compensation. Indeed, the surviving crew members were billed for damaged uniforms and lost White Star Property.  

The loss of the Titanic shattered people’s confidence, some would say arrogance, that Man had at last conquered nature. It brought to an end what Mark Twain had confidently described as the gilded age.