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Aside Published on 30 April 2025

Article from the Archives: ‘Olympic, Titanic & Britannic: An Issue of Finance’

It’s widely believed that construction of the three ‘Olympic‘ class ships was made possible by the use of American money – resources from either J. P. Morgan or IMM. The truth is the opposite: White Star was not supported by IMM’s resources. IMM was supported by White Star. Construction was financed through capital raised in the United Kingdom. This article (external link) explains in detail how:

White Star financed the ‘Olympic’ class ships and others by borrowing the money from largely United Kingdom-based investors, mortgaging its own fleet;
White Star borrowed the money, rather than IMM, to take advantage of its stronger financial position and lower borrowing costs;
The new ships provided additional security underlying IMM’s own debt, without increasing the money IMM itself borrowed;
Dividends paid by White Star from 1908 to 1912 helped IMM meet its debt interest payments.

It was first published in the Titanic International Society’s Voyage July 2020: Pages 135-39.

The subject of how the construction of the ‘Olympic‘ class ships was financed is a good case study showing the necessity of using primary sources (original documentation) rather than secondary sources (such as books or television programmes). We have the prospectus which was issued to investors in 1908, in which the White Star Line explicitly stated why they were borrowing the money; we have the IMM annual report from the same year, which carried a statement on behalf of President J. Bruce Ismay and the Board of Directors, explaining that the White Star Line was borrowing the money and giving their reasoning for doing so; and we have records from both the financial press and the London Stock Exchange Daily Official Lists (SEDOL) confirming that the bonds were issued and the prices they traded at when they changed hands on the market. In contrast to this, many modern books or television programmes have simply claimed that J. P. Morgan or IMM’s capital resources were made available to finance construction: this inaccurate assumption is simply false.

Above: ‘Movements in Shipping Securities’ reported on 18 June 1914. They were listed in alphabetical order by the name of the shipping line, so the many rows after ‘Cunard’ and up to ‘O’ have been deleted; ‘Oceanic Steam. Nav.’ is an abbreviation for the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company, which was the legal name of the White Star Line. ‘Deb’ denotes that the security being traded was a debenture bond rather than a stock. (Shipbuilding & Shipping Record, 1914/Author’s collection)

Aside Published on 24 April 2025

Titanic‘s Centre Propeller Dossier

For decades, it was simply assumed that Titanic‘s propeller configuration was the same as her sister Olympic‘s. This assumption became accepted as fact. All too often, photos of Olympic‘s propellers were used to stand in for Titanic without the descriptions making clear that they were photos of her older sister ship. (There are no known photos of Titanic in dry dock with her propellers fitted and visible.)

However, in 2007 I was researching the Harland & Wolff records (supported by a local researcher, Jennifer Irwin). This material had been deposited with Public Record Office Northern Ireland (PRONI) between 1972 and 1994. It included documentation colloquially referred to as the ‘Harland & Wolff order book’, which kept a record of the key dates for each ship such as the contract date, when the shipyard and engine works were ordered to proceed, when the keel was laid, when the double bottom was completed, when the hull was fully framed, when the ship was launched and delivered. The ship’s basic dimensions and propelling machinery details were also recorded.

Of particular interest to ‘rivet counters’ or technical researchers was a series of five volumes of engineering notebooks, which focused on the technical aspects of the hundreds of ships they completed, as built: these included each ship’s size, displacement and propelling machinery particulars in great detail (such as the size of engine components, the boiler specifications and propeller specifications). The details were recorded meticulously. It is not clear exactly when they were transferred from Harland & Wolff, but the best guess is that this was probably the early 1970s. These records were also classified as closed, subject to researchers making a specific application to review them, which stands in contrast to other archival records that are classified as open (without such access restrictions).

The entries for Titanic state that her propeller configuration had an increased pitch of the port and starboard propeller blades (compared with the 1911 Olympic configurations) and a slightly larger centre propeller which had three blades instead of four. In other words, contrary to the assumption that Titanic‘s propeller configuration was closest to Olympic as she was in 1911, it was closer visually to Olympic‘s configuration after her 1912-13 refit. In hindsight, there should be nothing surprising about this. Shipbuilders of the period were constantly tweaking and experimenting with the optimum propeller designs and we know from J. Bruce Ismay’s testimony that Harland & Wolff had advised him they expected Titanic to be slightly faster than Olympic.

This material from Harland & Wolff is a primary source, which is far superior to secondary source material. As explained in the Harvard Library’s Research Guide for the History of Science:

Primary sources provide first-hand testimony or direct evidence concerning a topic under investigation. They are created by witnesses or recorders who experienced the events or conditions being documented.

Secondary sources were created by someone who did not experience first-hand or participate in the events or conditions you’re researching.

The key distinction here is that, whereas many secondary sources simply repeated an assumption about Titanic‘s propellers that was made by people who were not there in 1912, the primary source material was produced first hand by personnel at Harland & Wolff who were tasked with keeping a record of each completed ship’s technical particulars. It is the contemporary record which was kept by the shipbuilding firm who completed Titanic in 1912.

This dossier groups together the primary source evidence and analysis of that material, including the Harland & Wolff evidence published in 2008 and other supporting evidence discovered by other researchers in the years since.

Sadly, Titanic’s propeller configuration has been the subject of ill-tempered and vitriolic arguments online. What was simply an interesting discovery of a previously unknown difference between her and her older sister ship has become the topic of frequent hysteria. Nonetheless, despite all these arguments, there is no debate as far as the primary source evidence is concerned. From the historian’s perspective, what counts is that our interpretation is based on the best available evidence. The best information we have about Titanic’s propeller configuration (to date) is Harland & Wolff’s own records.

Above: A stunning illustration of how Titanic‘s propellers most likely appeared, based on the propeller specifications recorded by Harland & Wolff. (Courtesy Vasilije Ristovic, 2019)

A Voyage on Olympic: Willem Frederik Piek

Status Published on 23 February 2025

A Voyage on Olympic: Willem Frederik Piek Jr.’s Notes for the Holland America Line, December 1911

A new article of mine, ‘A Voyage on Olympic: Willem Frederik Piek Jr.’s Notes for the Holland America Line, December 1911′ (external link) has been published on Encyclopedia Titanica.

Born in Amsterdam on 16 March 1874, Willem Frederik Piek Jr. became the head agent of the Holland America Line in New York, in 1912; four years later, he became a director of the company, serving in that position until 1935. In December 1911, he boarded Olympic at New York for an eastbound crossing (the passenger list also included ‘Mrs Piek’). Travelling first class, his objective was to check out what life was like onboard. How comfortable was her passenger accommodation? How was the White Star service? How might they lure away her passengers?

His meticulous notes, handwritten in Dutch, provide fascinating details of what it was like to sail on Olympic. They contain the sort of observations that cannot be found in period journals such as The Shipbuilder, or in chatty, casual letters home from passengers. It all adds to the social history of Olympic and provides a glimpse of what life might have been like onboard Titanic, such as first class passengers stealing spoons from adjacent tables, or maids and valets hanging around the companionways because they only had a dining saloon on C-deck.

One common factor when observers acting for one shipping line wrote about competitors’ vessels is that they often seemed very critical about particular aspects of a ship. This can also be seen in reports Cunard’s naval architect, Leonard Peskett, wrote about Olympic in August 1911 and Imperator in June 1913. If advertisements of the period extolled a ship’s virtues, then competitors’ criticisms provide a counterweight. The reality lies in between. Indeed, we also see positives such as the lack of items which rattled in first class staterooms.

This is believed to be the first time that his notes have been published. They illustrate the importance of diversifying beyond English language sources. His observations and a vast array of other hitherto unpublished material will be included in Mark Chirnside’s next book, from which much of this article is drawn from.

This article was first published in the Titanic International Society’s Voyage 128 July 2024: Pages 158-62. (A German language version was published in the Swiss Titanic Society’s Titanic Post 129 September 2024: Pages 125-30.)

A number of the locations that Piek referred to in his notes, such as the maids’ and valets’ dining saloon, can be seen recreated as they were on Titanic through Titanic: Honor & Glory’s DEMO 401 Update 2.0 Release Day Tour.

Above: The Holland America liner Rotterdam (1908) was built by Harland & Wolff. She introduced many innovations and set a number of new standards in passenger accommodation. (Author’s collection)

Aside Published on 21 November 2023Leave a comment

Article from the Archives: ‘Britannic: The Length and Breadth of The Ship’

Even today, precisely 107 years after Britannic‘s loss, her history is often misunderstood. Many popular beliefs about her are demonstrably false. Among them are two basic points about her dimensions:

The belief that she was 903 feet long (overall length), whereas she was exactly the same length as her older sisters.
The belief that her beam (breadth) was increased following the Titanic disaster in order to make room for the ‘inner skin’ which was fitted along the length of her boiler and engine rooms. In reality, the decision to increase her beam had been taken already prior to the keel being laid.

This detailed article provides an analysis of the evidence about her length and discusses the reasons her breadth was increased. It was first published in the Titanic Historical Society’s Titanic Commutator February 2020: Pages 171-76.

Above: The sea above Britannic‘s wreck is a beautiful, deep blue (photographed in 2016). (Author’s collection)