Articles with the Tag Adriatic

A Captain’s Responsibilities

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A Captain’s Responsibilities: In Charge of a Floating Town

 

A ship’s captain such as Captain Edward John (‘E.J.’) Smith was responsible for what was, ultimately, a floating town. Plenty of things could happen on a single voyage.  One of many unusual incidents occurred about two years before the Titanic disaster.  Early in 1910, the White Star liner Adriatic was leaving her New York pier when one of the ship’s stewards heard a revolver shot. One of the second class staterooms was found to be locked from the inside.  The ship’s crew forced it open to find a passenger ‘lying on the deck with a bullet wound in the right temple’. Captain Smith wrote in the log:

The revolver was found lying close to the man’s right hand. The ship’s surgeon was called and pronounced life extinct.

Edward Ettridge, who had adopted the stage name ‘Ed Beppo’ for his English music hall performances, had shot himself in Alfred Burgess’ stateroom. He was, briefly and understandably, mistaken for Burgess. One of the ship’s officers had to call for a tug to take the body off the ship. Smith signed the entry in the ship’s log that Ettridge had died of a ‘bullet wound in right temple’, countersigned by Purser McElroy and Chief Surgeon William O’Loughlin. (The story is covered in ‘The “Big Four” of the White Star Fleet: Celtic, Cedric, Baltic & Adriatic’.)

On the same round voyage, which took Adriatic from Southampton to New York and back again, there were a number of crew who either deserted, ‘failed to join’ or ‘left by consent’ at Southampton. After the westbound crossing, Sixth Engineer Arthur Ward had to remain in New York due to ‘suspected appendicitis’. Then there was the case of a trimmer who had to be ‘fined five shillings for disobedience to lawful commands’. He admitted ‘refusing to obey orders, on the plea that the duty took him to the engine room, and that he signed articles to work in the stokehold only’. Another trimmer was reported ‘off duty owing to an injury to his right great toe, caused by a piece of coal falling on the foot’. And they had to take on additional victualling staff to make up for an unexpected number of extra passengers.

Two years later, Captain Smith, Purser McElroy and Chief Surgeon William O’Loughlin all perished in the Titanic disaster.

Above: Captain Edward John Smith (1850-1912).  (L’Illustration, April 1912/Author’s collection)

 

 

Adriatic & Amerika: Myth & Reality

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Adriatic & Amerika: Myth & Reality

The order to proceed with Adriatic‘s construction was given on 23 August 1902.  Her keel was laid by Harland & Wolff about three months later but the order was then suspended on 19 January 1903. (The engine works were not ordered to resume work on her propelling machinery until July 1905.)  Meanwhile, construction continued at a slow pace on her hull.  The double bottom was not fully framed until 1 July 1903, several months later than might have been expected. In consequence of the suspension of the order and subsequent pace of construction, Adriatic entered service almost three years after Baltic, even though they were only laid down five months apart!

 

Above: Construction Chronology of Celtic, Cedric, Baltic & Adriatic.  (The ‘Big Four’ of the White Star Fleet: Celtic, Cedric, Baltic & Adriatic)

 

It has been suggested that HAPAG’s Amerika, completed by Harland & Wolff in 1905, utilised the hull originally intended for Adriatic.  There is no basis for this claim.  Baltic was not launched until November 1903, by which time the work on framing Adriatic‘s hull was well advanced.  Amerika was then laid down on the slipway vacated by Baltic. (She was shorter and slightly narrower than both Baltic and Adriatic.)

Nonetheless, Amerika introduced a significant number of features for her first class passengers.  In the context of increasing competition on the North Atlantic, White Star made sure that Adriatic‘s passenger accommodation would be improved significantly compared to her older sister ships. 

 

Read all the details in The ‘Big Four’ of the White Star Fleet: Celtic, Cedric, Baltic & Adriatic! 

 

 

FAQ: Was Third Class Empty on the Eastbound Crossing?

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FAQ: Was Third Class Empty on the Eastbound Crossing?

 

No.

From 1907 to 1914, White Star’s Southampton to New York express service was operated by ships including Adriatic (1907-11), Majestic (1907-14), Oceanic (1907-14), Olympic (1911-14) and Teutonic (1907-11).  The total number of third class passengers carried westbound was 116,491 whereas the total number of third class passengers carried eastbound was 110,211.  (This data excludes commercial crossings made immediately after the outbreak of war in August 1914).

Total third class passenger numbers eastbound were actually higher than the westbound numbers in 1908, 1911, and the 1914 data up to August.  The data for 1908 is the most dramatic example of this, with 10,121 third class passengers carried westbound and 24,282 eastbound.  (Poor economic conditions in the United States led to a significant increase in eastbound passenger traffic.)

It is certainly true that many third class passengers travelled to the United States intending to start a new life there.  Nonetheless the westbound and eastbound third class passenger traffic was much more balanced than many people seem to think.

(As an aside, the White Star Line had a good intermediate or secondary service from Liverpool provided by the ‘Big Four’.  Their general manager, Harold Sanderson, thought that ‘the slower service…is the favourite service for the third class passenger’. He pointed out that the ticket costs ‘are slightly lower; they are lower than the Olympic’. The average third class passenger lists tended to be higher on the Liverpool to New York service, although that might also reflect that the ‘Big Four’ were newer and had superior third class accommodation to older ships such as Teutonic and Majestic.) 

 

Above: Adriatic was the largest ship in the White Star fleet from 1907 to 1911.  Although she was slightly faster and more luxurious than her three older sisters, the ‘Big Four’ were intended as intermediate ships.  She was transferred to the Liverpool to New York service shortly after Olympic was completed in 1911. Another distinction is that the ‘Big Four’ had much greater third class passenger capacities than the company’s express liners. (Author’s collection)

 

 

Captain Smith’s Titanic Quote

Captain Smith’s Titanic Quote

Captain Smith’s Titanic Quote

Titanic was headline news for weeks following the disaster.  On 16 April 1912, the New York Times included an article about Captain Smith and his career in their coverage.  Within that article were extracts from comments Smith had reportedly made on the conclusion of Adriatic‘s successful maiden voyage almost five years earlier, to the press in New York.  It is easy to see why a newspaper reporter would want to quote Smith’s comments.  He had spoken about his ‘uneventful’ career and the love of the ocean that he had had since childhood. Then, he went on to talk about the safety of modern passenger liners. Those comments had a sad irony given the recent disaster.  One common quotation, used by historians in the decades to come, was:

I will say that I cannot imagine any condition which could cause a ship to founder.  I cannot conceive of any vital disaster happening to this vessel.  Modern shipbuilding has gone beyond that.

Back in 2008, I began to worry that I had not been able to find Smith’s comments in newspaper coverage from that summer of 1907.  I found it somewhat uncomfortable that our source seemed to be only a post-disaster publication.  However, thanks to the effort of a number of researchers including the late Mark Baber, Smith biographer Gary Cooper, and Dr. Paul Lee, sources for the quotation were found from pre-disaster publications.  These included press reports dating from later in 1907 through to a report in The World’s Work in April 1909 (shown in an extract from a slide in my presentation to the British Titanic Society in April 2024, below).

 

By comparison, the New York Times’  report published on 16 April 1912 had some interesting differences in emphasis.  For example, rather than saying ‘modern shipbuilding has gone beyond that’, the pre-disaster quote was ‘modern shipbuilding has reduced that danger to a minimum’. The New York Times also summarised Smith’s preceding comments, paraphrasing him: ‘Captain Smith maintained that shipbuilding was such a perfect art nowadays that absolute disaster, involving the passengers on a great modern liner, was quite unthinkable. Whatever happened, he contended, there would be time before the vessel sank to save the lives of every person on board’.  The paraphrased summary was broadly accurate, but it omitted the comment ‘I will not assert that she is unsinkable’ [emphasized above].

All of Smith’s reported comments are important and they need to be understood in their full context.   It’s also important to recognise that even the pre-disaster quotations are from a secondary source and rely on a degree of assumption that what Smith said was reported with reasonable accuracy!

 

 

Liverpool Seamen’s Pension Fund

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The Ismay Family: Pension Funds for Seamen, Widows and Widows ‘of those whose lives are lost while they are engaged upon active duty’

The driving force and founder of the modern White Star Line (Oceanic Steam Navigation Company), Thomas Henry Ismay, oversaw the growth of a company which made a significant economic contribution to Britain (and Liverpool, in particular). However, the Ismay family also arranged for significant social provision for retired seafarers, their widows, and the widows of those lost at sea. 

Thomas Henry Ismay, J. Bruce Ismay’s father, founded the Liverpool Seamen’s Pension Fund in 1887 to provide pensions ‘for deserving seamen of whatever rank sailing from the port of Liverpool, who are past work’.  It was intended to provide pensions of £20 a year. (Later, the Margaret Ismay Widows Fund was established to provide for their widows as well.)  The Mercantile Marine Service Association administered the fund as the trustees and by c. 1912 it had grown to about £69,000 (£52,000 of which came from contributions either by the Ismay family or the White Star Line). (Its assets were amalgamated into the Nautilus Welfare Fund in 2009.)

By that time, the number of pensioners receiving pension payments was 126.  They ranged from 54 to 94 years old and included 38 former commanders, 48 ship’s officers and 40 seamen.  During the quarter of a century since the fund had been established, 423 pensioners had received pension payments from the fund, equating to a total of £37,876.  (The number of widows receiving a pension from the newer Margaret Ismay Widows Fund was 74.)

Following the Titanic disaster, J. Bruce Ismay returned to the United Kingdom.  He arrived in Liverpool onboard the White Star liner Adriatic on Saturday 11 May 1912.  He lost no time in writing to the Lord Mayor of Liverpool later the very same day, proposing a new fund providing ‘for widows of those whose lives are lost while they are engaged upon active duty…upon the mercantile vessels of this country’.  The ‘terrible disaster to the Titanic’ highlighted the ‘necessity of such a fund’ and he proposed to contribute £10,000 with a further £1,000 from his wife.  It would ‘continue for all time’.  News of Ismay’s letter apparently reached the press and the Earl of Derby, Lord Mayor of Liverpool sent a telegram to Ismay asking if he could publish it ‘saying I have gratefully accepted your offer?’  Ismay responded: ‘Please act in whatever manner you think best, leave myself entirely in your hands’.

See Chirnside, Mark.  The ‘Olympic’ Class Ships: Olympic Titanic & Britannic. History Press; revised and expanded edition 2011.

 

Above: Thomas Henry Ismay (1837-99). (The Marine Engineer, 1899/Author’s collection)

 

 

Big Ships and Small Boats

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New Article: Big Ships and Small Boats

A new article, ‘Big Ships and Small Boats’ has been uploaded.

In the years leading up to the Titanic disaster, ships were getting significantly larger.  A lot of comment at the time and up to the present day has focused on the increasing size of ships in relation to the lifeboats they needed to carry under the law.  However, this overlooks the fact that the size of a ship was not necessarily a reliable indicator of how many passengers and crew she could carry.  This article provides a snapshot comparison between Olympic and Carpathia in April 1912 and some comparative British government data looking at the largest foreign-going passenger steamers, their passenger and crew capacity and lifeboat provision.

It was first published in the Titanic International Society’s Voyage September 2022: Pages 3-4.

 

 

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Presentation from the Archives: ‘The “Big Four”: Celtic, Cedric, Baltic & Adriatic’

 

 

 

The White Star Line’s Celtic (1901), Cedric (1903), Baltic (1904) and Adriatic (1907), collectively known as the ‘Big Four’, served for a combined 110 years. Together they carried around 1.5 million passengers on the Liverpool to New York and Southampton to New York routes during their time in service.

 

My presentation on 11 September 2017 at PRONI gave a comprehensive overview of all four ships’ histories, from conception and construction through to their successful commercial careers on the Liverpool and Southampton to New York services; cruising; war service; and Celtic‘s survival of both a mine explosion and torpedo attack in 1917 and 1918.