Mark Chirnside

The intensifying competition on the North Atlantic in the early years of the twentieth century led the White Star Line to order three huge liners. While their British rival, the Cunard Line, focused on speed, White Star concentrated on size and luxury. Orders were placed for Olympic and Titanic to be built at Harland & Wolff 's yard in Belfast, while the third sister ship, Britannic, would follow at a later date. Each ship was subtly different. Lessons learned from the service of Olympic were put into practice for Titanic, as other shipping lines immediately began to plan their response. Following Titanic's loss on her maiden voyage, radical improvements were made to the third sister ship, improving the watertight subdivision. These changes, however, did not prevent Britannic sinking in less than an hour in the Aegean in 1916, while serving as a hospital ship for the war effort. Illustrated with many rare images of all three ships, including a brand new colour section, this ...

This article discusses several minor refinements to Titanic's design based on experience with some specific riveted joints on Olympic (similar changes were then incorporated into Olympic and Britannic).  It is a greatly expanded version of an article originally made available on the Titanic Research & Modelling Association (TRMA) website in 2005, which published information about these changes for the first time.  This expanded article appeared in the British Titanic Society journal Atlantic Daily Bulletin in December 2019.

This article was first published in the Titanic Historical Society’s Titanic Commutator 2008: Volume 32 Number 183. Pages 108-12.
The original article examined what was then a new photograph of Britannic, showing her official transport number as ‘G.608’, in the early part of 1916, and another which showed it as ‘G.618’ in October 1916. The evidence available indicates Britannic had the number ‘G.608’ for the first phase of her career as a hospital ship and then ‘G.618’ for the second phase.  The reason for the change is still not known as it is not specifically documented.  However, it seems reasonable to suggest that the original number was simply freed up to be allocated to another ship, when Britannic was initially withdrawn from hospital ship service.  She was then allocated another one when she returned to service a few months later.

People often express surprise when they learn Titanic sailed on her maiden voyage with half her passenger accommodation filled.  However, there's no reason she would have been fully booked.  Express liners of the period rarely sailed full and this short article explores the subject with facts and figures to put the matter into context.

A television programme made a number of false claims about Titanic's lifeboats, claiming that the ship's original design had included enough lifeboats for all the passengers and crew but that this had been changed.  The programme showed viewers primary source documentation which purported to support these claims, but an examination of their source shows the programme completely misrepresented the contents.  This article highlights the danger of inaccurate claims in secondary sources.  The article was published in the British Titanic Society journal Atlantic Daily Bulletin in March 2019.

There is all too much incomplete, out of context, inaccurate or plain misinformation about Titanic.  Much of it stems from media sensationalism or simply the dissemination of inaccurate information in secondary sources.  That is particularly true when it comes to Titanic’s lifeboats.  There are many facets of the subject far beyond the scope of this short article, which merely draws a comparison between the original proposals for her lifeboats (July 1908) and the lifeboats she sailed with on her fateful maiden voyage (April 1912).  It demonstrates that Titanic's lifeboat capacity (as a proportion of her total passenger and crew capacity) increased by nearly 39% between the original design proposal being approved and her departure on her maiden voyage.

This article discusses a number of false, sensationalised claims made by conspiracy theorists about Titanic in recent years, including unsubstantiated claims of deliberately flawed construction.  It was published originally in the Titanic International Society journal Voyage in December 2015.

This article examines a last-minute change to Titanic's design: the enclosure of the fore end of the ship's promenade deck, A. It proved to be one of the most obvious external features to distinguish Olympic and Titanic at a distance, but a lot of claims have been made about the reason for the change which do not stand up to scrutiny.  The article looks at them in detail and provides little-known evidence from Olympic's career.  It was first published in the British Titanic Society journal Atlantic Daily Bulletin in March 2016.