Dan Snow's History Hit - TITANIC: The Unsinkable Ship

Episode Date: April 12, 2022

On April 10th, 1912, RMS Titanic cast off from Southampton, England, on her maiden voyage. The largest of its kind, full of grandeur and the most sophisticated technology for the time, Titanic was determined “practically unsinkable” in admiring reviews of the ship beforehand. The colossal tragedy of Titanic’s fate and the humanity of those who survived and those who perished on the luxury passenger liner has endured - their stories continue to resonate to this day.This year is the 110th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic and we’re marking it with a special mini-series. This is the first of three episodes in which we’ll bring you a dramatic chronicle of the story that has captivated people for over a century, testimony from the relatives of survivors and expert analysis of what really happened on the night of the 14th of April 1912.This episode was produced by Hannah Ward. Mixed and mastered by Dougal Patmore.With clips from: Titanic 1997 - Paramount Pictures and 20th Century Fox.If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.We need your help! If you would like to tell us what you want to hear as part of Dan Snow's History Hit then complete our podcast survey by clicking here. Once completed you will be entered into a prize draw to win a £100 voucher to spend in the History Hit shop.

Shortly after 12 noon on the 10th of April 1912, the note from her whistle, bold and optimistic, RMS Titanic, cast off from Southampton Dock on England's south coast. Towed out into the River Test by tugboats, she set off on her maiden voyage across the Atlantic Ocean to New York via Cherbourg, France and Queenstown in Ireland. Hundreds of passengers and crew on board gather at the front of the ship, the bow, while hundreds more swarm hurriedly across the decks, desperate to secure a view. Couples embrace with outstretched arms. Children are sat on the shoulders of their parents. Hats are brandished and a sea of hands wave ecstatically as goodbyes are cheered to crowds of Orphil family, friends and well-wishers on land. The propellers rotate below the surface.

Above the water, the vastness of this mighty ship is breathtaking. A luxurious ocean liner which dwarfs its flanking tugboats. Reporters capture photos. The crowds and people all over the world expect it, waiting for the maiden voyage of RMS Titanic. As the ship's engines enable her to glide through the water, the passengers's chorus begins to fade. Unknown at the time for many of their loved ones, tragically, it would be the final

farewell. Audio of this iconic scene of the ship leaving the port is, of course, taken from James Cameron's 1997 classic, Titanic. Cameron based his movie on accounts of course, taken from James Cameron's 1997 classic Titanic. Cameron based his movie on accounts of the ship sinking from survivors collected in the decades after. The movie was a global phenomenon that captured the hearts of millions across the globe, from a teenage Dan Snow, who watched it in a movie theatre in Strathclyde, to masses of Chinese moviegoers and Afghans sheltering from the Taliban in Kabul. But even before the movie, adults and children alike have always been enraptured by the story of this luxury cruise liner.

The largest of its kind, full of grandeur, the most sophisticated technology available at the time, the infamously unsinkable Titanic. It was a colossal tragedy, so painfully preventable, and it only makes it worse, the dreadfulness of its loss. The stories of those who survived and those who perished have endured and resonate to this day. This year is the 110th anniversary of the sinking of Titanic, and we're marking it with a special mini-series.

Over the next three episodes, we'll be bringing you a dramatic chronicle of the story that has captivated people for over a century. Testimony from the relatives of survivors, and expert analysis of what really happened on the night of the 14th of April 1912. You're listening to Dan Snow's History Hit Podcast. Welcome to part one. On the 3rd of March 1909, construction of RMS Titanic began in Belfast, Ireland. But the story didn't start there. For Titanic's origins, we need to go back two years prior, to mid-1907,

and a discussion between an Englishman and an American. Tim Moulton is a British author, historian and TV presenter. He's also one of the world's leading experts on the Titanic and an author of three books on the subject. Tim, what was the world like in 1912? What's going on? Well, there was a coal strike in 1912. It was the beginning of the unions, so standards of living were getting better. Workers were realising that they could group together and have a lot of power. But what about in terms of luxury liners,

transatlantic traffic, people travelling? Is this an era of globalisation? Needless to say, there was not yet transatlantic air travel. So these large ships were the only way to go. And a number of people were leaving Europe and heading out to life in the new world to start up a new life in America. So many were going for new jobs. They had all their possessions on board. And what these people liked was the large ships. They felt they were safer. And in fact, Titanic only needed to have three funnels, but she had four because a lot of the immigration traffic actually preferred four final liners. They thought, this is really safe.

This is not going to sink. Titanic, it's being built in the UK. Is that prestige? Is it important for Britain and Ireland to build these ships here on these shores? I think very much so. And you're alluding, I think, to a bit of an arms race that was going on behind the scenes in 1912 that was ahead of the First World War that obviously was due to break out in 1914. So yes, Belfast in Northern Ireland was a centre of shipbuilding at the time.

Harland and Wolfe believed themselves to be the best shipbuilders in the world. It was very prestigious that they had that contract and they built Titanic as well as they possibly could. There's all sorts of arms races going on, but there's arms races within the UK as well. That's absolutely right. So basically, we in the UK were aware we could see war with Germany coming down the track. There were lots of these dreadnought battleships being created as well. And there was a lot of prestige going on, you know, who could have the biggest and best luxury liners and things like that. Cunard had, in fact, just built the Lusitania and the Mauritania using military money. She was subsidised by the military. Now, in fact, White Star Line worked with J.P.

Morgan in order to actually get private finance for the Titanic. But it just gives you an idea of how the countries were thinking about what could we use as troop carriers in the event of war and having to deploy troops in theatres of war over the sea. So this is the backdrop to Titanic. You mentioned Whitestone and Cunard. They're the two big players in the UK, are they? They are, absolutely. And what's interesting there is that Cunard went for it.

They built the Lusitania and Mauritania, which were very fast. They actually had faster service speeds than the Titanic was meant to. Their ships could do 24 knots, whereas Titanic's service speed was more like 22 knots. But here's the point. Even though Lusitania and Mauritania had quadruple screws, that means four propellers, and Titanic and Olympic only had three, what you have to realise is Olympic and Titanic were larger and they were built for luxury. People said that when the Lusitania and Mauritania went full speed, that the rails used to shake on the ships and it would sort of make the mattresses dance and stuff like that. So what White Star wanted to do was slow it down, keep it luxurious and reliable. These ships were

meant to be a trio of ships, Olympic, Titanic and what was going to be gigantic. She later became called Britannic and was sunk in the First World War. But the point being that it was about reliability. So Titanic was built as what's called a Wednesday ship, which means that she wasn't built to get in on Tuesday like the others. She was built to get in on the Wednesday, but like clockwork. Titanic presumably refers to the ancient Greek, the Titans, right? The parents of the gods. You're absolutely right. And the Olympic is because of Mount Olympus and the gigantic is because of the giants. So what the White Star Line was trying to do was impress with the solidity and size and power of these three ships. You've got these colossal ocean liners. So it's not just about speed, it's about travelling in hitherto unimaginable luxuries. It's about a pleasant experience. That's absolutely right, Dan. I mean, what you have to remember is in 1912, of course,

many ordinary families did not have hot and cold running water, even in their houses. So even though third class was a lot less luxurious than second and first class, in fact, third class on Titanic would have been much better than they were used to at home and would have actually felt rather luxurious even to what was called the steerage passengers at the time. All three of these ships. It's a tragic story, really. So if we look at the trio, the first one was the Olympic and she was more or less the same size and design as the Titanic. We all know what happened to the Titanic. She sank on her maiden voyage. The Britannic that was going to be called the Gigantic until the Titanic disaster made that sound like a rather tempting fate,

sadly hit a mine in Mudros Harbour in the Aegean and sank in shallow water there in the First World War. But in fact, the Olympic became known as Old Reliable. She travelled 600,000 miles during the First World War. She was actually the only merchant vessel to sink an enemy U-boat. And she did that by turning very fast and actually ramming the enemy submarine in the First World War. And she survived until 1935 when pressure from air travel and the cost of the upkeep of the older ships meant that she was actually scrapped

in Jarrow to provide work for people during the depression there. Tell me about the dimensions of Titanic. What's the best way for us to get a handle on how surprising and unusual this was? She was 882 feet long. So by today's standards, she wasn't that big. But by the standards of the day, she was twice the tonnage of the previous largest ships in the world. It's built in Belfast. I mean, this is if it's twice the tonnage. I mean, did they have to change their practices to get that ship built? Very much so. They did some amazing things. They built the Aral Gantry, which for years and years and years became a real symbol of the shipbuilding skyline of Belfast. They had to do that in order to get the cranes high enough

to be able to actually populate the decks and actually put the boilers into Titanic and stuff like that. The other thing they had to do is they had to purpose build the largest dry dock in the world, known as the Thomson Graving Dock at the time. They built that for Titanic in Olympic. Olympic's keel was laid down first, and then kind of what they learned on building Olympic, they transferred over to Titanic. And in fact, there's an interesting

quirk here, which is, of course, all the press were really excited by Olympic because she was the first, the greatest. And of course, what happened was that everyone photographed Olympic. And then when it came to rushing Titanic through, they actually never photographed Titanic. So in fact, nearly every photograph you see of the interior of Titanic is in fact the Olympic. If you could have witnessed one moment of history, would it have been that construction yard with the... How many workers? Just like ants all over those hulls. Tens of thousands of workers.

And in fact, there's that very iconic photograph of all the workers, you know, flowing out at the end of the day at Holland and Wolfe. So she was a major employer in Belfast. Around about two years to build, what about cost? Did it overrun or as expected? In today's money, she cost about £150 million to build. And the point there is that she was built on a cost plus basis, which is very enlightened. And it shows the trust between Lord Pirrie of Harland & Wolfe and Ismay of White Star Line. And basically what they said was, we will have an open book policy. So you're the client, Ismay.

We're the builders, Harland & Wolfe. We'll show you everything we spend, but we have to make a profit. So what we'll do is we'll show you everything it costs us, and then you will pay us 5% on top of that. And that will be the profit for the yard. So what's good about that is White Star Line knew they weren't being ripped off. They could see the open books. They could see exactly what their ships had cost to build. And the shipyard knew that at the end of the day,

they weren't going to be out of pocket. And that's why there was no incentive, as people have speculated, to cut corners. In fact, White Star Line did give them a blank checkbook. They basically said, build us the best ships in the world. On the 31st of May 1911 following completion of her main superstructure a crowd of a hundred thousand spectators watched as robert falconer keith head foreman shipwright at harlem and wolf was given the honor of launching titanic at 12 13 pm titanic started to move for the first time amid cheersid cheers from the assembled crowd, the hull got up to a respectable speed, about

12 knots, almost 14mph, as she slid into Belfast's River Lagon. After launch she was fitted out with everything needed to make her the ultimate luxury liner, capable of crossing the world's oceans. First, machinery was loaded into the ship, and later, extensive, opulent interior work began. What about Belfast's shipbuilding heritage? There were no strangers to building great ships here. They had built the White Star line vessels for a number of years. So they built the Oceanic, they built the original Britannic. For decades, all of the White Star fleet have been built at Harland & Wharf in Belfast. And people of Belfast are very proud of Titanic,

to this day, aren't they? Absolutely. There's a great joke, which is probably best told over with a pint of Murphy's or Stout or Guinness or something, but they said she was all right when she left here. Yeah, some Englishman drove her into an iceberg, yeah. Well, exactly. But what is true about that is that she was one of the best made ships ever to put to sea. And in fact, if you look at a modern disaster like the Costa Concordia, for example, she suffered less damage than Titanic and she rolled over in about 20 minutes, whereas Titanic sank on an even keel and took two hours and 20 minutes to sink. And in fact, there are these things called SOLUS, which is the safety of life at sea regulations. I would argue that Titanic's hull was actually better built than modern safety of life at sea regulations actually stipulate.

Any shipbuilders that you're fond of? Thomas Andrews. So he was very, very hardworking, and he was always kind of first into the yard last out working weekends all this sort of stuff he was always having an eye to every part of detail of the ship whether it was the design of the boilers or how many screws there were in the stateroom coat hooks all that sort of stuff everyone liked thomas andrews and he was actually part of the guarantee committee and what happened was that the best workers at Harland & Wolfe, their prize was to go free of charge, obviously, on the maiden voyage of Titanic to check everything was running smoothly.

And none of them survived. Something about the propulsion and it burnt so much coal every day, didn't it? That's right. So 600 tonnes of coal she burnt every day, which is quite extraordinary. She had the largest reciprocating engines, in other words, the largest sort of steam engines that were ever built at that time. She was 72,000 horsepower. So although she weighed about 50,000 tonnes, she could still do a top speed of actually about 24 knots, although her service speed was more like 20 to 22. And what's

interesting about her was she's very efficient, funnily enough, for the day. Her two outside propellers were driven normally, but her central propeller was driven by a turbine which used unused steam. So extra steam that still had some life left in it. So she was also more efficient than Lusitania and Mauritania. And there was no particular protection against ice. They were assuming ice wouldn't be a huge problem on that transatlantic run. Well, it's very interesting you talk about the safety features of Titanic because Titanic was actually subdivided into 16

watertight compartments. And so well so that, in fact, you could have sawn Titanic in half, as it were, crossways twice. And each of the three separate pieces of the same length would have each floated. The other thing is, Titanic could have rammed into the iceberg head-on, and she could actually have flooded all four of her first watertight compartments and still been fine. She could have had a collision on the joint between two bulkheads, and she would have still been absolutely fine. The one thing, Dan, the one thing she was not designed for was a sideswipe disaster that took out 200 feet and five watertight compartments. So in other words, the sort of accident that she encountered was outside of her design envelope. Let's talk about the rudder. Too big, too small. What's going on there?

A lot of people say, oh, well, you know, their rudders were too small. And if the rudder had been bigger, then she could have turned and avoided the iceberg. I'm afraid that's complete armchair nonsense. In fact, the Olympic had the same size rudder as the Titanic and her wartime captain in the First World War of Olympic, that is, said that she was the best handling ship that he ever had the pleasure to command. And he'd captained military vessels as well. So the idea that Titanic or Olympic didn't turn well is a nonsense. And in fact, they did actually miss the iceberg above the water. And the lookout said, gosh, that was a close shave, wasn't it? But unfortunately, there was a giant shelf of ice underneath the water that the Atlantic wave

erosion had hidden underneath. And it was that shelf that Titanic's flat hull ran over and caused such a lot of damage to the plates around the hull. The ship was never officially touted by the White Star Line as unsinkable, but the term practically unsinkable appeared in admiring reviews of the ship beforehand. The perception in the public mind was that the ship exuded modernity and comfort. It gave off the impression of solidity, of safety. While many other shipping lines at the time focused primarily on speed, White Star offered a point of difference. They branded their services by focusing more on providing comfortable passages for upper-class travellers, as well as packing immigrants below decks.

The vessel carried 840 cabins in all, 416 beautiful ones in first class, 162 in second class, and 262 in third. Titanic was put to sea with 57,600 pieces of crockery and 29,000 pieces of glassware, 75,000 pounds of fresh meat, 40,000 eggs, 11,000 pounds of fresh fish, 40 tons of potatoes and 7,000 heads of lettuce, all loaded onto the vessel to sustain the five-day journey. More on Titanic after this. How can you tell if your neighbour is a witch? If you're obsessed by witches, then maybe there's something wrong. How would you go about painting Henry VIII? I think Henry's a monster,

and so I see a sort of puffed- up, balloon-faced, impotent guy. Would you invite Oliver Cromwell to dinner? There's no point in having Cromwell to dinner other than to be entertained with his heavily skewed version of events. I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb and in my podcast, Not Just the Tudors, we talk about everything from ballads to banqueting, sex to spying, ghosts to gunpowder plots. In other words, not just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors. Subscribe from History Hit wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Alan Orjanaga. To be continued... the best of friends. Murder, rebellions. And crusades. Find out who we really were by subscribing to Gone Medieval

from History Hit. Wherever you get your podcasts. On April 3rd 1912, Titanic arrived in Southampton. Having travelled from Belfast, she would spend a week docked on the quay before welcoming passengers and crew aboard. Paying public were briefly welcomed for viewings. The ship was dressed with flags and pennants, hung from the rigging in a salute to the people of the city. On the 10th of April 1912, she set sail on her maiden voyage. Crowds gathered and a throng of excited reporters watched as the ship departed Southampton to begin the 84-mile first leg of the journey.

Amid the crowds were families of the crew. Seamen, quartermasters, stewards, cooks, engineers, electricians, stokers, or firemen as they were known. One of those firemen was Arthur John Priest, a man whose life and experience on the Titanic and beyond defies probability and gave him the nickname the Unsinkable Stoker. We'll hear Arthur's story across the series, told by History Hits Matt Lewis. Arthur John Priest, who also went by just John or even Jack, was born in 1877 to working-class parents.

His family eventually settled in Southampton in the 1880s on Lower Canal Walk in St Mary's, then one of the poorer districts in Southampton. Arthur was one of 12 children. The priest household was crowded and lacked basic comforts, so as soon as he was old enough, Arthur began to look for work. At the age of 25, he found a steady job working in the engine room of a steamship as one of its stokers. A stoker's job was to shovel tonnes of coal into the giant furnaces that powered the ship. It was unbearably hot, back-breaking work. They didn't pay very well, but it was a welcome break from the chaos of home. It was also better to have a difficult job than no job at all. At the time, the White Star Line were building their Olympic-class fleet of ocean liners,

Titanic, Olympic and Britannic. Over the course of his career as a stoker, Arthur John Priest would work on board all three ships and remarkably survive collisions and sinkings on all three. His first brush with his own mortality came on the 20th of September 1911. He was shoveling coal into the engine of the Olympic when he heard a loud crumpling metal sound echo through the ship. The Olympic had collided with the side of HMS Hawk, a Royal Naval cruiser, as they passed one another in the Solent. A huge hole was ripped in the side of the Olympic and the Hawk's bow was completely destroyed. No one was killed in the collision, though the Hawk almost capsized. The Olympic returned to Southampton, then went on to Belfast for repairs.

This was an age when accidents, near misses and sinkings were relatively common. On the 10th of April 1912, he left home once again, headed for the Southampton docks. There, he boarded RMS Titanic, along with the rest of its Southampton crew, awaiting a voyage that would make history for all the wrong reasons. Well, you mentioned the captain of Olympic. Who was the peacetime captain of Titanic? Who's the man we're talking about on this maiden voyage? Oh, that's Captain Smith. He was known as the millionaire's captain, and actually wealthy people would change their sailings just to sail with him because funnily enough from today's standpoint he was regarded as a safe captain he'd never particularly had accidents his crew adored him but they did like the fact that

he was quite fast you know he did like a bit of a turn of speed and they actually said they used to stand next to him and flush with pride in own words, as he conned the ship up into New York harbour with only feet to spare from the banks either end of the vessel. So he was confident, he was experienced. Also Smith, although he looked like a traditional transatlantic captain with a massive handlebar moustache and a thick beard, he actually never spoke above a conversational tone. He was a very mild-mannered, very quietly spoken man. But if he had to tick off a sailor, he could make a man come to his feet with a bump by just suddenly really turning it on. So they liked him, they found him kind, and they respected him. But Smith, interestingly, I told you he liked speed, and he was a member of the Merchant Marine as well. And as he was coming out of Southampton Harbour with Olympic, his new command,

he started racing HMS Hawk. And they got faster and faster and faster. And eventually, suddenly, the Hawk just slammed into the side, the hind quarter of Olympic. And her battering ram went through the side of Olympic. But luckily, the automatic watertight door was, when water came in, closed against the water. And that made everyone feel that, yes, these ships really were practically unsinkable. But what that meant was, first of all, it was the first time Smith had blotted his copybook. And secondly, they were just about to finish Titanic for a March maiden voyage. But they

had to delay Titanic. They had to warp her out of Thompson and Graving Dog. They had to get Olympic back in. They had to fix all Olympic's propellers up, patch up her hull. And that made Titanic delayed until the ice season in april for her maiden voyage it's all connected so how many crew members are there there were only 2 227 people on board titanic when she sailed and 900 of them were crew so you get this idea that there was almost one crew for every two passengers if that makes sense so an unbelievable amount of crew partly because the service levels of the day were absolutely enormous, partly because there's lots of manual work that can't be done by machines in those days, but also, of course, because the huge

engines took a lot of feeding with coal and a lot of looking after and a lot of stewards and things like that. Are they veterans? They all worked together before? They're all veterans and they're all used to their jobs, but aboard different ships. so each crew in those days was hand-picked for every return voyage so what would happen is they'd basically queue up at southampton just before titanic set sail and say hey me sir me sir me sir and then the person who was you know deciding who would you they think oh yes i've worked with him before i've worked with you before yes you're good yep come on board come on board so it was a real lottery of who would be on there. But they did pick the best for Titanic. And the reason for that is, I think I may have mentioned, there was a cold strike at the time, which meant that the

Titanic could have the pick of all the best crew. So it wasn't a case of all the ships were out, and so you were down to the last man, and you might not really want those men, but you didn't have a choice. It was a case that most ships were laid up titanic was one of the few big liners that was running and therefore the white star line had the cream of the crop the pick of the crew and they handpicked the very best and nearly all from southampton or certainly that's where the recruiting was done that's absolutely right so most of them were from southampton um some from belfast some from liverpool but the vast majority from southampton and familiar with the north at trade. And what about passengers? How expensive is the first class? It's rather like aeroplane travel today, actually. So you can imagine how much you'd spend on a sort of standard

class ticket, whereas if you wanted to go somewhere where you'd have amazing first class with massage seats and alcohol and all sorts of stuff, you can imagine that might cost quite a lot. But actually, there were one or two cabins in first class that had their own private promenade deck. They had their own sitting room. They had their own bedroom. They had their own bathroom. And not even all first class cabins had their own bathrooms in 1912. And that might have cost as much as £50,000 in today's money. So you can imagine that as almost like hiring a private jet to take you over the Atlantic would be the equivalent today. And then down to steerage, third class, what would that sort of be? So that would just be a couple of hundred pounds in today's money to travel

steerage. But as I said, even they would be very happy with their accommodation because it would have hot and cold water and actually probably better food than many of the third-class passengers we're used to at home. What about the famous people? Who was on? Some very, very famous people. In 1912, it was slightly before celebrity culture in that way. So their celebrities tended to be wealthy people. So for example, John Jacob Astor was a great celebrity of the day, and he was the richest man in the world and he was travelling first class on Titanic and he's always portrayed as being kind of really rich and really stupid and really snobby but in fact Astor was an inventor and had got a number of patents to his

name and was nobody's fool and he was bizarrely travelling with Molly Brown. Now Molly Brown is the woman in the Cameron film who is kind of portrayed as new money because she had a gold mine in Denver, Colorado. But in fact, Asta and her and Brown were traveling together and they'd been holidaying in Egypt together. So I think it's interesting when you actually get to know behind the scenes actually who was getting on with who. On the 11th of April, 1912, having successfully stopped at Cherbourg, Normandy in France, the evening prior, Titanic made its final European stop at Queenstown, now known as Cove in Ireland. Several passengers disembarked and 120 passengers boarded. In the afternoon,

Titanic set off for New York City. Tell me a little bit about the amenities. You've mentioned some of them already, but what could people get up to on the Titanic? Titanic was really the first of the breed of the sort of luxury cruise liners that we know today. So, for example, she was one of the very first ships to have a heated swimming pool. She also had a gymnasium. In 1912, they were very into their physical exercise and getting outdoor air in their lungs. And so having a gymnasium was a really big thing. Are these all divided up by class? Yes, I believe that only first class had access to the gymnasium. It's possible that second class could have done at certain times. Certainly third class would not

have access to these things. The squash court, of course, was available, I think, to first and second class, certainly to first class. They also had a Turkish bath, which we would nowadays call a sauna. So yes, the amenities were amazing. And really, everyone would have marveled about the size and luxury of the ship. And it was rather like being in a grand country house on land.

And yet you were, in fact, at sea. Everyone always loves all the food and all the dining room stuff what was it like really amazing i mean to be honest nowadays by our standards i think we'd regard the third class fare as quite basic so it would be good soup with some good bread and rolls it would be cheese and biscuits for pudding so you know perfectly decent but quite basic whereas on the other hand in the first class class, you had a seven-course meal where you would be having everything from things like sorbet as palate cleansers,

you'd be having lots of champagne, you'd be having fish courses and meat courses. So really luxurious. And then if that wasn't enough luxury for you, Dan, you could also pay extra money beyond your first class ticket to go to the Aucard restaurant, which was one of four restaurants on Titanic. And in fact, what was interesting about that is it was run by Monsieur Gatti, who ran some very famous restaurants on land. And he was actually involved with the Ritz Hotel as well. So it was almost like the Ritz floating around on the North Atlantic. Did all this come at a compromise of safety? Well, I don't think so.

Did all this come at a compromise of safety? Well, I don't think so. But I'll explain the point there is that a lot of people say, oh, well, there weren't enough lifeboats for everyone. But what you have to realise is the Board of Trade in 1912 was trying to disincentivise ship owners from having leaky old vessels full of lifeboats because that wouldn't really have helped anyone because usually when a ship sinks, it sinks on an uneven keel.

And when that happens, of course, you can't use the lifeboats down one side so in fact to be really safe you'd need to have twice as many lifeboats for everyone on board and of course with a ship like Titanic that would be ridiculous so what the board of trade said was if your ships are properly subdivided then you may have fewer lifeboats because all you need to do then is use the lifeboats to ferry you from a stricken liner to another rescue ship. So that's the thinking behind that, is that a safe ship only needs to have lifeboats for trans-shipping people in an emergency situation. And it was thought, they're in a very busy stretch of ocean, there would be other ships nearby. You're absolutely right. So in 1912, it wasn't just wandering around on the ocean. The ocean was almost like an extension of the railway lines of the day. So the line went all the way down to Plymouth and then the ships carried on to New York almost like

a railway line. And it was very like that because you had a westbound track and you had an eastbound track and they were 60 miles apart so that there was no crashing between east going and west going ships but they had to stay in their stations and therefore all the ships going west would come along one after the other and all the ships going east would come on one after the other so therefore the board of trade thought the worst that can happen is you're going to have to wait and actually transship people between a ship 60 miles away and a stricken liner but in the days of wireless of of course, the idea was that you would send a radio message and all ships would come to help. The problem was

Titanic sank at night before 24-hour radio watch had been instituted and therefore a lot of the radio operators had gone to bed. As the ice warnings are coming in, the captain keeps rattling along quite high speed. What was he thinking there? Well, what he was thinking was, I want to get through the ice region while the weather remains as clear as it is. I don't want the fog to come down. So he was looking at his barometer. It was very high pressure. But he knew that if that pressure started to drop,

we would have a fog because the fogs were notorious around the ice region. So he got to the ice region so he got to the ice region and he was like wow got a bit of luck here the pressure's so high that it's crystal clear and he wanted to crack on through the danger area while it was clear and before the fog came down and do you think also he'd be able to dodge icebergs if he saw them absolutely captain after captain testified in the british inquiry and and the American Inquiries in 1912 that in clear weather, which Titanic had that night, they always kept to course and speed because normally they could always see ice about a mile and a half away.

On the morning of the 14th of April 1912, four days into the crossing, no one could anticipate what would happen that night. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast to get the next installment of this story tomorrow and if you want to watch our tv show about titanic and a new theory about why she hit that iceberg you need to go to history hit tv there's a link in the information of this podcast just click on there get two weeks free if you sign up today to History Hit TV, the world's best history channel. This episode was produced by Hannah Ward and micked and mastered by Dougal Patmore. Thank you.