Hello and welcome back to day four of "Titanic Week". Our short series where we're lifting the lid
on a few of the pop culture and movie myths about the Titanic disaster and exposing them to a little
bit of historical research and scrutiny. And today we're going to look at a group of people,
and an environment, that has just become warped by class romanticism and tales of greedy money men,
and snobbish stewards sentencing passengers to death just because they're poor. I am talking, of course,
about third class or steerage and its passengers. Now thanks in part to James Cameron's excellent
movie, we all have an image of them. Downtrodden, poverty-stricken, surprisingly cheerful, and 99.9%
plucky and Irish. It is the most accurate depiction of third class that a movie has done,
but i'm afraid even that image doesn't survive well after some scrutiny. Now it's important to
understand here that third class is not just there to fill space. It's an important and integral part
of White Star's business plan. They very much want a strong, if not dominant, share of the immigration
market. Their major rivals Cunard and Hamburg America were already taking large numbers of
immigrants from Europe to a new life in America. They'd take you there but it was basic, after all
it's not like you were going to make a return trip, but White Star had a very different idea,
and as we highlighted on in our episode on Ismay yesterday, White Star were good at business. In fact
in 1913 the year after they'd been responsible for the biggest maritime disaster in history up
to that point, White Star posted record profits. They very much knew what they were doing
and they recognized that emigration was a two-stage process and the customer loyalty
would bring very strong advantages. When the one main breadwinner leaves to set up home in America
if you've taken care of him and he traveled in comfort then when he brings the eight members
of his family across later he'll use your ships and your cruise line to do it. He'll buy your tickets
and that's the important point. Third class is a lucrative, available, and very important market.
In fact based on the average ticket prices and passenger numbers on titanic White Star took
more money from third class than it did from second class. This isn't a customer base you're
going to look at neglecting. The fact that third class was not some sort of neglected workhouse is
supported by the facilities that are available for a third class voyage. Third class cabins are quite
comfortable. You've got beds with the same sort of mattresses that are present in both first and
second class. The manufacturer went to great pains to actually advertise this, and if you compare
this photo of a third class cabin on Olympic, to the second class cabin on Olympic you'll notice
there's not a huge amount of difference. Plus there are other third class facilities that
you don't really find on other liners, there was a recreation room, a promenading deck, a smoking room
and a restaurant, and the restaurant's important. If you were sailing on Cunard or Hamburg America then
you would be bringing your own food. But with White Star you got meals provided, and contrary to this
idea that it was gruel three times a day it just wasn't. This was a menu that White Star produced as
a postcard showing the Sunday menu. Another clever marketing ploy to advertise third class comfort.
Hauntingly it turned out to be the last menu to be served, but look at it. That's a cooked
two-course breakfast and a three-course Sunday lunch. I don't eat like that now.
A lot of people point out the inclusion of gruel as a supper serving and paint this as
as hellish despite much evidence to the contrary being on the same page but, as we highlighted in
our victorian workhouse video, gruel isn't torture food it's basically thin sweetened porridge. I've
tried it and it's surprisingly addictive i could do it for breakfast daily without complaining.
Also being quite basic is not a bad thing. It's not a good idea to pile a lot of rich foods into
a people who've never really sailed before. Like we say White Star wants its third class travellers to
be comfortable. Not ill. They want them to be happy. So at that point then if White Star valued them so
much why did it lock 75% of them in the bowels of the ship to die? Well basically they didn't.
It is true that there were locked gates that separated first and second class customers and
passengers from third class. But that's not about keeping the poor in their place, that's simply
to comply with US immigration law. Again if we look at James Cameron's movie there is no way
that Jack Dawson would be able to meet up with Rose on the decks, in the restaurant or even run
through the engine room. That doesn't just cross a class boundary, it breaks about 50 US immigration
laws and White Star needs to keep in mind the laws. With that number of immigrants coming into
the US they just couldn't track or determine what health issues or diseases people might be bringing
in with them. First and second class passengers would generally get a medical certificate before
traveling. Third class wouldn't. So far from having a policy of treating third class like
prisoners White Star just have a policy of obeying US quarantine laws. There are some statements
from third class survivors describing scenes of third class passengers being forcibly detained in
areas by WhiteSstar staff but these don't give us enough information to make a concrete conclusion.
Third class survivor, Margaret Murphy, wrote a month after the disaster "a crowd of men
was trying to get up to a higher deck and were fighting the sailors; all striking and scuffling
and swearing. Women and some children were there praying and crying. Then the sailors fastened down
the hatchways leading to the third class section. They said they wanted to keep the air down there
so the vessel could stay up longer. It meant all hope was gone for those still down there."
Powerful stuff. But there is a lot from this that we don't know. We don't know where she
was when this occurred, what door they were trying to get through, when in the timeline this actually
occurred, if she really witnessed it or if it even happened. I'm not going to assume it's false.
But i'm also not going to assume it's correct either. All that we can corroborate regarding
Miss Murphy and her journey is that she got off the boat at 1:40am in Boat 16.
Now there are several factors that go to explaining why the evacuation of third
class passengers was problematic. One of the main ones being just how far third class was
from the lifeboats to start with. There's five decks between the passengers and the boats
and getting up there even with the gates open is a rabbit warren of corridors and stairways
it's very easy to get lost in. If we look at our example previously where they're trying
to get through a hatch, again we don't know what hatch they're getting through or what the dangers
are or if they're going in the right direction. Closing that hatch to them may have been a good
idea to funnel people the other way. Stewards William Cox and John Hart made a number of
trips down to third class to guide groups up to the boat deck. In fact William Cox died doing so.
Let's also consider the sheer number of different ethnicities on that ship,
in that class. These people are not only emigrating from Britain, but Scandinavia, Central and Eastern
Europe, Greater Syria and even Hong Kong. According to the third class passenger list over 67%
of the passengers would not speak english as a first language if at all. If you're trying
to make these people aware of an emergency, and then get them out with life vests on
to the right deck and in good order there's just not a language barrier to get over, there's about
20 language barriers to get over. It's a fact that is just as tragic and sad, that first and
second class passengers were just closer to the lifeboats and easier to move as a crowd.
The accusation of malice on the part of White Star staff or policy was a popular one after
the disaster and it was so prevalent that it was handled in the subsequent inquiry,
and after interviewing and taking the testimonies of over 80 survivors the inquiry found that
allegations that third class passengers were locked below decks to be false, and that stewards
had opened them when instructed to do so in accordance with normal practice in an emergency.
Concerned third class passengers may well have been kept in place before
the abandoned ship order was given but then again so was everybody else.
The third class passengers were in fact represented at the inquiry by a lawyer
Mr WD Harbinson and even he concluded "that no evidence has been given in the course of this
case that would substantiate a charge that any attempt was made to keep back the third class
passengers." If their own representative council comes to that conclusion i'm inclined to follow
him. Like everything else regarding the Titanic disaster and the bulk of history's details we may
never truly know but the people of third class and frankly the everyday crew of the White Star line
deserve better than Hollywood has portrayed them. So please enjoy the movies, my favourite being A
Night to Remember, but please don't take them at face value. Ask the questions. Make your mind up
and we'll see you in the comments no doubt for the continuing debate thanks for watching. Bye