Olympic & Titanic: Triumph and Disaster – Three Parts
The book contains seventeen chapters as well as seven appendices. There is an incredible amount of information and so we decided that the book would work well divided into three parts, each containing between five and six chapters.
Each part is introduced by its own section, differentiated by a black strip running down the page. They are populated by quotes from the various chapters which give a flavour of the material. They have been chosen to support the narrative and are from material which is either rare or previously unpublished. One example is a quote included in the introduction to Part 1, which is from William Watson, Cunard’s chairman, writing in April 1908. He discussed a number of issues at that time and commented on recent press reports claiming (inaccurately) that the White Star Line were going to built a new 1,000-foot liner. The potential implication he saw in such a large ship was that she would carry a very great number of passengers, leading him to ponder ‘where all the passengers are going to come from’.
In reality, the White Star Line opted to use the greater size of their new ships to increase the number of first and second class passengers, rather than third class. What that meant was that they carried fewer passengers compared to what they might have done if third class had been prioritised. Indeed, Olympic carried fewer passengers than some ships far smaller than her.
By January 1909, Cunard had a much better idea of the true scale of White Star’s new ships, as well as vessels under construction for Norddeutscher Lloyd. Throughout 1909 and 1910, they followed developments closely and tried to understand what HAPAG, Norddeutscher Lloyd and White Star were planning. All of this effort helped underpin the design of their new Aquitania…
