Rich vs Poor: Class Divisions On The Titanic Exposed

[@williambailie6313]

Just discovered 'The Rest is History' and loving it. When talking about safety features on Titanic, one of the things that doesn't get mentioned is that she took about 2.5 HOURS to sink, which allowed time to muster passengers, launch lifeboats, and listen to the band play 'Nearer my God to thee'. Compare this to Empress of Ireland which sank in less than 15 minutes after a collision with another vessel in 1914. Titanic's design may not have saved her from sinking but did allow much more time for the crew to react to the damage.

[@jilliansmaniotto2326]

exactly!!

[@philipbrowne63]

The other expression here in Belfast is: "Titanic - she was alright when she left!"

[@MartyH99]

Sadly not! She sank because of design flaws- put in place in H&W!

[@egm8602]

Yes! And the stellar career of the Olympic proved it!

[@tutorjames666]

That Churchill impression was immaculate 🇬🇧

[@lakedistrict9450]

You chaps brilliantly bring this alive. Fantastic. Thank you.

[@dietersherry9936]

Brilliant. I loved it when one of you said that the Titanic was 'beneath me'...ha ha. A few graphics might punctuate the commentary, but perhaps I am a philistine? The sequence of the episodes is rather unclear...unless I am missing an indicator. A top-notch production. Thank you.

[@michaelbedford8017]

I remember a magazine cartoon many years ago on this subject. It showed a crowd of relatives outside the offices of the 'White Star Line'. In the middle of the throng a Polar bear was elbowing his way to the front calling 'Any news of the iceberg!'

[@jonathonjubb6626]

Probably 'the Eye'...

[@themo.]

Addicted to the rest is history ever since I came across it on Spotify! Only *just* found out you're on YT. Now I get to WATCH history in the making. Let joy be unconfin'd

[@artsbabydoll]

i usually don't watch podcasts, but I love history, esp the Titanic. You gentlemen are amazing & I love your channel.

[@nickroberts990]

Your Titanic series is absolutely fantastic! The most enjoyable yet. I'm going to have to listen to it again. 👌

[@P4neK4ke]

The way he quote Churchill ! Wonderful.

[@tav9352]

Hey guys, nice podcast and enjoy your work. I'm actually a serving Master in the merchant navy so I took a particular interest in this episode. Your criticism of Captain Smith is unfair and I don't think you adequately explained why he had those two incidents. The collision with HMS Hawke was due to interaction between the two vessels, which whilst we understand very clearly now, was not understood or experienced at the time. I suggest your listeners look up interaction between vessels. Thanks!

[@jilliansmaniotto2326]

smith also wasn’t at the helm at the time of the collision. the ship was helmed by a harbor pilot. more than anything, it was the harbor pilot’s fault. smith was essentially in charge in name only while the pilot was on board.

[@CollectiveWest1]

Great series. One of your best. I have followed your wonderful podcast since my brother introduced me to it. Interesting to hear the list of items loaded at Southampton. One item omitted from loading which would have been useful was the key to the box holding the sole pair of binoculars on board, which a departing officer should have given to Charles Lightoller. That omission was why the lookouts had to rely on the Mark One Eyeball to watch for icebergs.

[@gwcstudio]

It's important to remember that these ships were the concordes or space shuttles of their day. Nobody cut corners, it's just that they had not yet thought of all the things that could go wrong. In fact, I bet the chief engineer of one of the liners would never accept blow-by on an O-ring as within margin of error. The builders of Titanic thought of darned near everything but they missed a few details nobody else thought of either.

[@GoBlueGirl78]

Great episode! There are many stories like the train delay at the end; my grandmother’s best friend told me how her mother missed boarding at Queenstown because of a problem with their carriage (I think it was a broken wheel).

[@markarnold5593]

I read "Captain of the Carpathia: The seafaring life of Titanic hero Sir Arthur Henry Rostron by Eric L. Clements" a couple of years ago.... great book about an amazing guy, and the era he lived through from sailing big square riggers, to the luxury liners..... Post Titanic sinking, one of the biggest celebs on earth.....

[@tonykehoe123]

“You don’t get sick on the Titanic….” You just get sunk 😊

[@Jay-vr9ir]

I agree The Queen Mary 2 is a drag , I however crossed on The Norwegian Escape from Southampton to Miami it was fantastic .

[@vespers96]

Love this series and this ep was riveting 😉 well done guys

[@3rdager]

In 1977 I joined the S.S. Mercator 1 in New York and I recall being shown an old newspaper cutting which showed a photo of the bearded and braided captain of a ship which had failed to stop before ploughing through to 12th avenue earlier in that century. Any suggestions on where I might locate that article?

[@RichardM333]

Search "Wikipedia: List of online newspaper archives"

[@frankknudsen842]

The contractor suggested that Titanic use a new, larger type of davit which could give the ship the potential to carry 48 lifeboats. They had been tested in Belfast and was determined they could carry 75 full grown adults. So you're absolutely correct. 64 - the number of lifeboats the Titanic ship could have been capable of carrying a total well over the ships maximum capacity of 3,547 people. The regulations required a vessel of 10,000 tons or more to carry 16 lifeboats with a total capacity of 9,625 cubic feet 272.5 m. The Titanic came in at roughly 49,000 tons.

[@johncarroll772]

Oceanliner Design videos are excellent

[@BenjaminNavillus]

Particularly the virtual tour of the Titanic episodes - outstanding.

[@drgeorgek]

Excellent work fellas 👏

[@martiwilliams4592]

Very gripping: And here I thought I knew the story. Thank you!

[@frankknudsen842]

Probably the best source is the 94' documentary titanic death of a dream, " and the legend lives on." Of all the many documentaries that have been made about the Titanic disaster, this two-part, 192-minute film, produced in 1994 for the Arts & Entertainment network, remains the most thorough, authoritative, and fascinating chronicle of the Titanic tragedy.

[@ruthmckittrick6279]

My Grandmother was alive at this time and made reference to seeing the Titanic launched and had generations of Shipyard workers, what I wished I'd asked her and had conversations with her but being this elderly, I was too young at the time.

[@bullfighteragainstnonsense9924]

You guys are great

[@fastpublish]

Andrews' older brother went on to be Prime Minister of Northern Ireland. Suggestions that Titanic actually sank because all the ceili dancing going on in steerage weakened its structure, have been disproved. No, it was definitely because shipyard workers wrote "No Pope Here" on the ship.

[@tulyar57]

I don't think you've grasped the idea of a "shippy smell", lads. It is not similar to a cross-channel ferry. The idea of these ships is that the sealed interiors are designed for passengers not crew. Cargo vessels (including those carrying fare paying passengers) previously would have been redolent of coal, bunkers, oil and generators. As for Tom asking why 'Liverpool' was emblazoned on its arse-end it was because White Star (and Cunard at the time) was the port of registry. Dominic asks if White Star are still going, I think they merged with Cunard in the 1930s and were bought out by Cunard in the '40s and Cunard changed registry to Southampton. Their ships are now registered in Hamilton, Bermuda (flag of convenience)

[@livesouthernable]

Another point about the lifeboats is that most ships list severely to one side as they’re sinking, so often the lifeboats on the opposite side can’t be launched anyway. During the sinking of Lusitania and Britannic, the lifeboat launches went very badly and people died. Much better to make the ship more unsinkable

[@stephenhoughton632]

Hi, great episode. What is your view of the idea that the purpose of the lifeboats was to ferry people to nearby ships summoned by radio. As in the Republic sinking.

[@vernonhiggins3323]

I've always thought too on the lifeboat issue that 3rd class would have been virtually empty on the 'return' New York to Southampton voyage. Lifeboat places would have matched passenger numbers.

[@louiseoliver3453]

The lifeboat thing was because it was to do with tonnage (based on cargo vessels) and lifeboat capacity was based on ships of 10k tons and hadn't been updated for years. White Star bragged in its ads that lifeboat capacity was actually above the legal minimum which it was. The main tragedy I think is that they were often lowered half empty. They couldn't have saved everyone but they could have saved a few hundred more lives. I read years ago that the lifeboats hadn't been tested to their maximum capacity so the crew weren't sure if they could hold everyone

[@sifridbassoon]

I seem to remember watching a couple of videos that would imply that double bottoms and horizontal bulkheads were invented and used on ships earlier than Titanic. Am I wrong?

[@lorlabear]

You may be interested to know that the Harbour Commissioners' Office in Belfast is home to a dining room table which was completed too late and never made it onto the ship before she sailed!

[@mrNibrud]

It was the iceberg’s maiden voyage, too. What are the chances

[@dietersherry9936]

My apologies...there are some graphics...perhaps I was too engrossed in the commentary to notice them.

[@frankknudsen842]

First off im in no way whatsoever attempting to upstage either of you gentlemen. Your exemplary in every aspect of your trades and talent and i rarely miss your broadcasts, please continue your insightful in depth subjects. But, i finally get to use my expensive ass degrees I'll b paying off til im 60😅. Mr. Alexander Carlyle was the contractor from the Wellin company hired to build additional davits and boats to expand the number of lifeboats. Ismay opted out for the original number of 20 total. This was far too few for the number of people aboard, and yet remarkably, this was technically legal; the law at that time based the number of lifeboats required on the gross register tonnage of a ship, not her passenger capacity. No one had envisioned in the drunkest bouts thought ships would ever get that size. Thanks ever much

[@louiseoliver3453]

They actually had more than the legal minimum!

[@frankknudsen842]

@louiseoliver3453 I thought that's what I said. According to the board of trade . But not in terms of complete practical accommodations

[@louiseoliver3453]

@@frankknudsen842 I believe tonnage was only up to 10k tons while the big T was 4 times that. I read somewhere that the crew hadn't tested the lifeboats so one reason they were only half full was the crew didn't know if they'd sink. The tragedy is they could have saved more lives

[@bobmurphy6229]

I saw a 'documentary' which said there was a fire in a coal bunker which was burning when they left Southampton. The Stokers were raking out burning coal and shovelling it into the boilers. This was why it was tralelling fast at night and met its end - they had to get rid of the burning coal. A picture of her leaving Southampton shows paint peeling where the bunker was located. How true I wonder?

[@jilliansmaniotto2326]

oh for the love of god. that story is bullshit. small fires in coal holds were extremely normal. they happened all the time. they were absolutely not shoveling extra coal into boilers to get rid of smoldering coal. the picture DOES NOT show paint peeling, nor is there any indication the smoldering coal caused structural damage. the discoloration is most likely either a reflection picked up on film strangely or a smudge on the photograph itself. the location of the smudge is also NOWHERE NEAR where the coal bunkers were located. the smoldering coal also would not have been remotely hit enough to affect the steel or paint like that. the way they dealt with coal fires, including this particular coal fire, was to try to separate the smoldering coal from the rest of the coal by shoveling it into different bunkers. that is what happened here. in fact, it’s widely accepted that this actually resulted in significantly reducing the number of lives lost as the shoveled coal caused a slight list of the ship to port. when the ship hit the berg on the starboard side, resulting in the rush of seawater through the starboard side, the existing slight port-side list made it so that the ship sank on a mostly even keel. this allowed the sinking to go more slowly as it prevented some huge, rapid list to starboard… most ships when sinking eventually develop a strong list to one side, which makes it impossible to launch lifeboats from one side and speeds overall sinking (and possibly causes it to capsize). titanic sunk mostly on even keel, only starting to show more list to starboard at the very end. half of the launched lifeboats likely wouldn’t have been launched and would have gone down still attached to the ship if not for the slight port list. they are going “fast at night” because some captains, like captain smith, felt that the best course for dealing with ice fields was to get through and out of the ice field as quickly as possible. the dipshit who pumped the coal fire story is a hack and a laughingstock in the history/titanic community.

[@JonathanRossRogers]

28:56 TIL that "titanic" is a verb.

[@green856w]

The Titanic was registered in Liverpool. Neither where a ship is built, nor the port from which it might usually operate have no bearing on where it can be registered.

[@coulie27]

That train delay story at the end is insane. Fickle fate!

[@trumphodge]

Dominic says Captain Smith's annual compensation of 1250 GBP would be equivalent to about 800,000 GBP today--a million with his bonus. That seems way overstated. I have been reading Trollope novels recently, and he is quite detailed about the incomes and assets his characters possess. I just finished a book written in 1858, and by way of illustration, one woman has an income of 500 pounds--a nicely comfortable income when living in the country. Not as comfortable in London. A conversion website says that would be the equivalent of 81,000 GBP today. Increase by 2.5 for Capt Smith's 1,250 GBP salary and you get 202,500. Plus his salary was in 1912, when inflation would have eaten away a bit of that. I know conversions are tricky but a factor of 4 has to be too high.

[@upscrambled9367]

"but but but Tom" vs "HOWEVER Dominic"

[@gwcstudio]

2,500lb of sausages would look like 3 pallets stacked with sausages.

[@Terinije]

Important to note that claims that the Titanic was unsinkable were mostly after the fact hyperbole to emphasize the shock of the sinking.

[@colingibson5966]

They just about got the lifeboats they had, launched. Even if they had enough boats for everyone it's doubtful they would of got them full and off before the ship was at too steep an angle to launch them.

[@colincampbell4261]

Full steam ahead........oh shit!

[@IB4theAIB]

All that water and only twelve mops, no wonder they sank

[@DavidMBRichardson]

But I've heard that the quality of the steel used for steel plates and rivets was not up to much.

[@TransmissionEpicts]

It was an interesting and potentially surprising theory, as quality-control and materials science wasn't as advanced as it is now, of course. But in tests conducted on recovered Titanic steel plate and rivets the materials were found to be of a good standard for the time, and fairly consistent. Titanic's sister ship "Olympic" was made from materials from the same suppliers and that ship served up almost until WW2, so the steel was sturdy enough ultimately.

[@jilliansmaniotto2326]

that story is bullshit and has been debunked. jesus christ.

[@waynemcauliffe-fv5yf]

Go the Gaels. Cheers fellas

[@egm8602]

Olympic was not Andrews' design. It was Carlisle's design. Andrews simply carried water for Carlisle. Ismay gave attention to useless detail for status. Third Class provided the bulk of the income. This is the snob podcast, not fact based.

[@frankknudsen842]

The original Olympic class ships was 1. Olympic 2. Titanic 3. Gigantic until the Titanic went down and gigantic sounded pretentious so it was renamed Britanic

[@jbones3595]

"He looks exactly as he should be" lol

[@fastpublish]

And it was recklessly overloaded with cliches ...

[@JamesTilsley1]

Enoch Powell was a Brummie, he was just the MP for Wolverhampton South West.

[@kammacleod4333]

I'm from Staffordshire we aren't brummies

[@johncarroll772]

£800 in 1912 in now £400,000 . Where does Dominic get that calculation, think £120, 000 is a more accurate calculation..

[@jonathonjubb6626]

Are we sure it's not the Olympic at the bottom of the Atlantic? Really sure?

[@jilliansmaniotto2326]

… yes. 100%. that bullshit has been repeatedly and thoroughly debunked.

[@MrZhefish]

zhe englisch, zhey make their jokes about sausage... ... but zhey eat it for breakfast!

[@daydays12]

scandalous greed and lack of concern for safety....it'd only be the poor who drowned, so who cares?

[@jilliansmaniotto2326]

that’s your take? did you not watch this video at all?

[@johnchambers5029]

Hey guys, the Titanic wasn't the largest ship built or even the largest passenger liner built. It was one of the largest in it's day.

[@Salien1999]

To be very particular, she was the largest ship that was still in service when she entered service. Not the largest ship ever built as they say in the video.

[@qounqer]

good try anglos, i know what yall did.

[@ianshaver8954]

You also should consider gender divisions on the titanic.

[@qounqer]

I think this is made up

[@Ma_ksi]

First?