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On 14 April 1912, less than a week into a transatlantic trip from Southampton to New York, the largest luxury cruise liner in the world struck an iceberg off the coast of Labrador, causing the hull to buckle. The massive 50,000 ton ship hailed as 'unsinkable' was soon slipping into the cold Atlantic Ocean, the crew and passengers scrambling to launch lifeboats before being sucked into the deep. Of the 2,224 passengers and crew aboard, more than 1,500 died, making the sinking one of the deadliest for a single ship up to that time.
The sinking has captured the public imagination ever since, in part because of the scale of the tragedy, but also because the ship represented in microcosm Edwardian society, with the super-rich sharing the vessel with poor migrants seeking a new life in North America. Other factors, such as why there were only enough lifeboats to hold half the passengers, also caused controversy and led to changes in maritime safety. In later years many survivors told their stories to the press, and Titanic celebrates these accounts. A final chapter examines the shipwreck today, which has been visited underwater by explorers, scientists and film-makers, and many artifacts recovered as the old liner steadily disintegrates.
Titanic offers a compact, insightful photographic history of the sinking and its aftermath in 180 authentic photographs.
On 14 April 1912, less than a week into a transatlantic trip from Southampton to New York, the largest luxury cruise liner in the world struck an iceberg off the coast of Labrador, causing the hull to buckle. The massive 50,000 ton ship hailed as 'unsinkable' was soon slipping into the cold Atlantic Ocean, the crew and passengers scrambling to launch lifeboats before being sucked into the deep. Of the 2,224 passengers and crew aboard, more than 1,500 died, making the sinking one of the deadliest for a single ship up to that time.
The sinking has captured the public imagination ever since, in part because of the scale of the tragedy, but also because the ship represented in microcosm Edwardian society, with the super-rich sharing the vessel with poor migrants seeking a new life in North America. Other factors, such as why there were only enough lifeboats to hold half the passengers, also caused controversy and led to changes in maritime safety. In later years many survivors told their stories to the press, and Titanic celebrates these accounts. A final chapter examines the shipwreck today, which has been visited underwater by explorers, scientists and film-makers, and many artifacts recovered as the old liner steadily disintegrates.
Titanic offers a compact, insightful photographic history of the sinking and its aftermath in 180 authentic photographs.
1: Background to a Tragedy
Up to the late 1850s, few people crossed the Atlantic Ocean unless
driven by necessity or force. From the European and British
explorers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, to the
venturesome colonists of the seventeenth and eighteenth (and the
infamous slave traffic that followed), human movement westward
across the Atlantic grew steadily.
2: Three Giant Sisters
Titanic was the largest ship afloat at the time she entered service
and the second of three Olympic-class ocean liners operated by the
White Star Line. This chapter describes the construction of the
Titanic, its launch, and sea trials. At the peak of construction,
Harland and Wolff shipyard employed approximately 14,000 men to
build the enormous ship.
3: Trans-Atlantic Route
Titanic departed from Southampton on 10 April 1912, then stopped at
Cherbourg, France, and Queenstown (now Cobh), Ireland, before
heading west towards New York.
The first-class accommodation was designed to be the pinnacle of
comfort and luxury, with a gymnasium, swimming pool, libraries,
high-class restaurants, and opulent cabins. A high-powered
radiotelegraph transmitter was available for sending passenger
‘marconigrams’ and for the ship’s operational use.
4: The Collision
On 14 April, four days into the crossing and about 375 miles (600
km) south of Newfoundland, she hit an iceberg at 11:40 p.m. ship’s
time. The collision caused the hull plates to buckle inwards along
her starboard (right) side and laid five of her sixteen watertight
compartments open to the sea; she had been designed to survive the
flooding of up to four compartments.
Some passengers and crew members were evacuated in lifeboats, many
of which were launched only partially loaded. A disproportionate
number of men were left aboard because of a ‘women and children
first’ protocol for loading lifeboats. Titanic was under the
command of Captain Edward Smith, who went down with the ship.
Archibald Gracie IV, one of the wealthiest hoteliers in the world,
also drowned.
5: Rescue
The ship was equipped with 16 lifeboat davits, each of which were
capable of lowering three lifeboats, for a total of 48 boats. And
yet the Titanic carried only 20 lifeboats, four of which were
collapsible and proved hard to launch while the ship was sinking.
Together, the 20 lifeboats were capable of holding 1,178 people –
which was only about half the number of passengers on board. The
nearby Carpathia arrived at the distress call’s position at 4:00
AM, approximately an hour and a half after the ship went down,
claiming more than 1,500 lives. For the next four and a half hours,
Carpathia took on the 705 survivors of the disaster.
6: Aftermath
The disaster was met with worldwide shock and outrage, both at the
huge loss of life, and at the regulatory and procedural failures
that had led to it. Even before the survivors arrived in New York,
investigations were being planned to discover what had happened,
and what could be done to prevent a recurrence. Inquiries were held
in both the United States and the United Kingdom.
Many survivors later told their stories to the press and in books,
including the ‘Navratil Orphans’, ‘The Unsinkable Molly Brown’,
Eliza ‘Millvina’ Dean, Frederick Fleet, Masabumi Hosono, Charles
Lightoller, Harold Bride, and Archibald Gracie IV.
The wreck of Titanic was discovered in 1985 by a Franco-American
expedition sponsored by the United States Navy. The ship was split
in two and is gradually disintegrating at a depth of 12,415 feet
(2,069.2 fathoms; 3,784 m). Thousands of artefacts have been
recovered and displayed at museums around the world.
Photographic history of the world's most famous ship from construction to her wreck and legacy today
David Ross specialises in maritime, engineering and railway history and he has written and contributed to numerous books on these subjects. His most recent books are Abandoned Industrial Places, Rail Journeys, Bridges, Coast, Lighthouses, Ships Visual Encyclopedia, Submarines, Great Warships and The World’s Greatest Battleships.
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