Titanic: History in an Hour

J. J. Astor and his wife, Madeleine

The British contingent was equally well-heeled. Distinguished passengers included Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon, a Scottish landowner, and his fashion-designer wife, Lady Lucy Duff-Gordon; William T. Stead, the social activist, philosopher and editor of London’s Review of Reviews; and the Countess of Rothes, who was travelling to California to join her husband, the Earl of Rothes, who was on a land-buying expedition on America’s West Coast.

Other notable passengers included J. Bruce Ismay, whose tenacity and vision were responsible for bringing RMS Titanic to life; the American tennis player and Wimbledon champion, Karl Behr; silent movie star, Dorothy Gibson, and the famous Broadway producer, Jacques Futrelle.

Interestingly, the owner of the White Star Line and Titanic’s chief investor, J. P. Morgan, was forced to abandon his plans to sail on his new ship due to business commitments – a last-minute change of mind which may very well have saved his life.

But this was not the only eleventh-hour change of plan for RMS Titanic’s maiden voyage . . . there was a second, which would prove to be far less propitious for those involved.

Crew Changes

Just as Titanic was preparing to set sail, her sister ship, the Olympic, was forced to return to the Harland & Wolff shipyards for emergency repairs to a propeller. This unexpected turn of events led to a surprise re-shuffle of Titanic’s crew not long before the ship’s scheduled departure.

Originally, the list of seven officers, from Chief Officer down to Sixth, was as follows: William Murdoch, Charles Lightoller, David Blair, Herbert Pitman, Joseph Boxhall, Harold Lowe and James Moody.

However, with the Olympic’s crew at a loose end, the White Star Line decided to bring her experienced Chief Officer, Henry Wilde (pictured below), aboard Titanic for her maiden voyage.

Chief Officer Henry Wilde

This last-minute re-organization of crew meant that Murdoch and Lightoller were demoted to First and Second Officer respectively, while David Blair was removed from the line-up altogether.

Under orders to leave the ship immediately, Blair, in his haste, mistakenly took the key to his locker with him. Unfortunately, his locker contained the binoculars that were to be distributed among the crow’s nest lookouts. This meant that the lookouts would be forced to work unaided, which made their task of spotting icebergs in the distance infinitely more difficult.

This would be the first in a long chain of unfortunate events which would culminate, four days later, in the sinking of a supposedly ‘unsinkable’ ship.

An Inauspicious Beginning? (#ulink_8544887e-270f-540a-a759-4fc08b3c3986)

Just after noon on Wednesday 10 April 1912, with all her passengers and crew safely on board, the gang-planks were drawn up and RMS Titanic set sail from Southampton. As she was pulled from her berth by the tugboat Vulcan, throngs of people gathered on the dock to cheer her off, while hundreds of passengers congregated on her decks, waving farewell to the crowds below.

Tentatively at first, the colossal ship turned to port side and began to make her way down the narrow corridor of water, which gave way to the River Test, and which would in turn carry Titanic into the harbour. Slowly gathering speed, she glided past a number of ships, including the Oceanic and the New York, which were moored in the channel.

Titanic’s bulk made the task of manoeuvring the mammoth vessel down the narrow strait difficult – at one point there was hardly eighty feet between Titanic and the stationary vessels. Spectators looked on nervously, fearing a collision. However, as Titanic’s bow drew level with that of the New York, it seemed the danger had passed.

Then, quite without warning, the thick ropes which tethered the New York