A New Titanic Connections Feature: Titanic Tours
TITANIC CONNECTIONS FEATURE: TITANIC TOURS When Titanic was constructed at Harland and Wolff from 1909 through 1912, she would become the largest moving object ever made by man, edging out her elder sister Olympic thanks to additional features that were included in her after experience with Olympic showed various possibilities for improvement. Titanic Connections, using original photographs of the Titanic and her sister Olympic, as well as building plans, digital recreations, and other sources, will be taking our visitors on a tour of the ship. Every Tuesday, Titanic Connections’ historian Nick DeWitt will touch on a particular feature of the Titanic, starting with her keel plates and finishing eventually with the tops of the masts, funnels, and the wireless aerial. As Bruce Ismay said in James Cameron’s 1997 epic “Titanic,” the tour will be “from the keel plates up!’ We hope you’ll enjoy this feature and we look forward to bringing it to you each week. If you have a feature of the ship you want to make sure we touch on, please let us know! While the weekly tours will be done from the bottom of the ship to the top, we are always open to suggestions about what you’d like to hear more about when we get to that part of the ship! PHOTO CREDIT: Robert Welch, Harland & Wolff (now in the public domain)
Posthumous Fathers
Did you know… … that 55 Titanic victims became fathers posthumously? On board Titanic there were 17 women that were known or likely to be pregnant. Two of those women died in the sinking. It was common for men to leave their pregnant wives ashore. A total of 55 men became fathers after their deaths on April 15, 1912. The most famous of them was John Jacob Astor, whose son was born on 14th August 1912. There were many other passengers and crew members who never had the chance to get to know their children. This includes Henry Morley, who was proven to be the father of Kate Phillips daughter, Ellen, only recently on a Titanic Connections live stream. Source: Encyclopedia Titanica (see the whole list with the 55 men here)
Egdar Samuel Andrew
Did you know… … that there was a passenger who wrote a letter to a friend saying that he wanted to see Titanic on the ocean floor? Edgar Samuel Andrew was supposed to travel on the Oceanic but because of the coal strike, he was forced to change his ticket and go aboard the Titanic instead. On 8 April 1912 he wrote a letter to his friend from Argentina: “You figure Josey I had to leave on the 17th this [month] aboard the ‘Oceanic’, but due to the coal strike that steamer cannot depart, so I have to go one week earlier aboard the ‘Titanic’. It really seems unbelievable that I have to leave a few days before your arrival, but there’s no help for it, I’ve got to go. You figure, Josey, I am boarding the greatest steamship in the world, but I don’t really feel proud of it at all, right now I wish the ‘Titanic’ were lying at the bottom of the ocean.” 17 year old Edgar boarded Titanic as a Second Class Passenger in Southampton. He did not survive the sinking. His body, if recovered, was never identified.
