Titanic (4 page)

(Preceding image)
Titanic
leaves Southampton, England, on April 10, 1912, on her maiden voyage.

A day later, on Thursday morning at around 11:30 a.m., the
Titanic
lowered her anchor two miles off Cobh harbor, at the Irish port of Queenstown (now called Cobh), to pick up more passengers. It would be the ship’s last stop before heading out onto the open seas — and to the New World.

The
Titanic
was too massive for the harbor, so those who were getting on, mostly Irish emigrants in third class, were ferried out to the ship on two tenders, the
America
and the
Ireland
. (Three first class passengers, as well as 113 third class and 7 second class passengers, joined the
Titanic
at Queenstown, along with 1,356 sacks of mail.) Based on extensive study into passenger and crew records, New Zealand researcher Lester Mitcham concludes that overall there were 1,317 passengers on board the
Titanic
: 324 in first class, 284 in second class — including 8 members of the
Titanic
’s band — and 709 in third class. Of these, 522 were women and children.

Letters written during that first day were unloaded in Ireland, and a few passengers got off, including Frank Browne, still holding his camera — along with a packet of exposed photographic glass plates.

Years later, Frank (or Father Frank Browne) recounted that at dinner the first night on board he was befriended by a rich American couple, who offered to pay his way for the entire voyage — all the way to New York. But when he wired his religious order for permission to go, it was denied. The message read: “Get off that ship.”

So Frank left the ship — along with his precious photographic plates.

And that’s how it happened that today, thanks to Frank Browne and his uncle Robert’s generosity, we have his rare, heartbreaking photographs of those first hours of the
Titanic’
s maiden voyage.

(Preceding image)
Frank Browne, a young Irishman who was due to be ordained in 1915 and also known as Father Browne, was given a ticket for passage on the
Titanic
’s maiden voyage, from Southampton, England, to Cork, Ireland, by his uncle.

(Preceding image)
A couple strolls on the Promenade Deck of the
Titanic
.

Titanic
April 11th

My dear Mum and Dad

It don’t seem possible we are out on the briny wrifting to you. Well dears so far we are having a delightful trip the weather is beautiful and the ship magnificent. We can’t describe the tables it’s like a floating town. I can tell you we do swank we shall miss it on the trains as we go third on them. You would not imagine you were on a ship. There is hardly any motion she is so large we have not felt sick yet we expect to get to Queenstown today so thought I would drop this with the mails. . . . . We will post again at New York . . .

Lots of love don’t worry about us. Ever your loving children

Harvey & Lot & Madge

Among the letters unloaded at Queenstown was this cheery postcard from Harvey Collyer to his parents back in England. Harvey was a thirty-one-year-old grocery store owner who’d just sold his business in order to bring his family to America. Before the ship set sail, Harvey went to the bank and took out every penny he had — in cash. It came to several thousand dollars.

Harvey, along with his wife, Charlotte, and their eight-year-old daughter, Marjorie, planned to settle in Idaho, where friends were urging them to buy a farm. They hoped the sunnier climate would be good for Charlotte’s health, since she suffered from tuberculosis. Harvey was full of all the hopes and dreams of a young father. And what better way to begin a new life than to be sailing on the new, incredible
Titanic
?

Charlotte was also delighted. “The
Titanic
was wonderful, far more splendid and huge than I had dreamed of. The other craft in the harbor were like cockle shells beside her, and they, mind you, were the boats of the American and other lines that a few years ago were thought enormous.”

Charlotte wasn’t worried about safety; she was sure that even the worst storm couldn’t hurt a ship this big. And while she was a bit seasick at first, by Sunday Charlotte felt able to enjoy meals in the dining room. That day the Collyers and other second class passengers enjoyed a hearty lunch menu that included pea soup, spaghetti au gratin, corned beef with vegetable dumplings, roast mutton, as well as an apple tart.

A thoughtful young Englishman named Lawrence Beesley was also sailing second class. Lawrence, thirty-four, had resigned his job teaching science to take a long holiday to visit his brother in Canada. His wife, Gertrude, had died in 1906. Lawrence had left his only child, eight-year-old Alec, at home to take this trip.

Before sailing, Lawrence wandered around the ship, astonished by all there was to see. Second class passengers were allowed to tour the first class areas before launch, and Lawrence especially enjoyed peeking into the gymnasium on the starboard side of the Boat Deck.

(Preceding image)
A woman riding a stationary bicycle in the
Titanic
’s gymnasium. The man in this photo is second class passenger Lawrence Beesley.

The gymnasium was an attractive space, about forty-five feet long and seventeen feet wide, with seven arched windows, white walls and ceiling, and three oak columns. The equipment, which might seem rather old-fashioned compared to the high-tech machines of today, included two rowing machines, a stationary bicycle, a weight machine, a device called a “back-massaging machine,” and a punchball.

The gymnasium was the domain of a spry, enthusiastic thirty-six-year-old Englishman named Thomas W. McCawley. To Lawrence, the busy instructor seemed the very picture of health, all dressed in white with rosy cheeks and a jaunty mustache. Lawrence watched as McCawley darted here and there, introducing passengers to the latest equipment, “placing one passenger on the electric ‘horse,’ another on the ‘camel,’ while the laughing group of onlookers watched the inexperienced riders vigorously shaken up and down as he controlled the little motor which made the machines imitate so realistically horse and camel exercise.”

(Preceding image)
The
Titanic
’s gymnasium. The man in white is the gymnasium steward, Thomas W. McCawley. The gentleman in the background is riding the electrically driven “camel” machine.

Unlike first-timer Lawrence Beesley, first class passenger Colonel Archibald Gracie was a seasoned transatlantic traveler. An amateur military historian and writer, Colonel Gracie hailed from a wealthy New York family. But even he couldn’t help being impressed by the
Titanic.
“I enjoyed myself as if I were in a summer palace on the seashore, surrounded with every comfort — there was nothing to indicate or suggest that we were on the stormy Atlantic.”