The Rough Guide
to the Titanic
Were the third-class passengers held back from the lifeboats? Were the gates locked below decks? One of the great mysteries about the sinking of the Titanic is that although more than two thousand people were on board, and the ship took well over two hours to sink, witnesses described the Boat Deck as being empty when certain lifeboats were being loaded. Titanic,Rough Guide Titanic,Rough Guide to the Titanic,Titanic book review,Titanic books,Titanic book,Titanic best book,Titanic latest book,Titanic new book,Titanic newest book,Titanic good book,Titanic cheap book,Kindle,Titanic Kindle,Titanic e-book,Titanic Amazon,Titanic Amazon book,Rough Guide,Rough Guides,Lonely Planet,DK Titanic,Dorling Kindersley Titanic,Penguin Titanic,A Night to Remember book,A Night to Remember movie,A Night to Remember YouTube,Belfast,Californian,Captain Smith,Captain Smith film,Captain Smith footage,Captain Smith movie,Captain Smith photo,Captain Smith YouTube,Cherbourg,DiCaprio Titanic,Duff Gordon,Harland & Wolff,history titanic,HMS Titanic,iceberg,Ismay,It was sad when that great ship went down,J. Bruce Ismay,Jack Dawson Titanic,James Cameron Titanic,James Cameron’s Titanic,James Cameron’s Titanic re-release,John Jacob Astor,Julian Fellowes,Julian Fellowes Titanic,Julian Fellows,Kate Winslet Titanic,Lady Lucile Duff Gordon,Leo DiCaprio Titanic,Leonardo DiCaprio Titanic,Lightoller,Liverpool,Nearer My God To Thee,Night To Remember Titanic,Olympic and Titanic,Olympic sister ship,Olympic Titanic,real story titanic,real titanic,RMS Titanic,Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon,SOS Titanic,Southampton,SS Titanic,true story titanic,true titanic,Unsinkable,Unsinkable Molly Brown,Titanic 1912,Titanic 2012,Titanic anniversary,Titanic answers,titanic artefacts,titanic articles,titanic artifacts,titanic auction,Titanic author,titanic band,titanic books,titanic built,Titanic Californian,Titanic Carpathia,titanic cast,Titanic centenary,titanic characters,titanic college,Titanic collision iceberg,Titanic conspiracy,titanic conspiracy,Titanic conspiracy theories,titanic crash,Titanic dead,Titanic death,Titanic disaster,titanic discovery,titanic documentary,Titanic Downton Abbey,titanic encyclopedia,titanic engines,Titanic essay,titanic exhibit,titanic experience,Titanic expert,titanic facts,titanic facts and figures,titanic film,titanic first-class,titanic free,titanic fun facts,titanic gifts,Titanic Greg Ward,Titanic history,titanic hits iceberg,titanic how it sank,titanic how many,titanic hymns,Titanic iceberg,titanic images,titanic information,Titanic interview book,Titanic Julian Fellowes,Titanic Julian Fellows,titanic kate winslet,titanic kids book,titanic launch,titanic learn,titanic lesson plans,Titanic Louise Patten,titanic movie,titanic movie facts,titanic music,titanic musicians,Titanic myth,titanic necklace,titanic news,titanic newspaper,titanic on tv,titanic online,titanic online free,titanic passengers,titanic photographs,titanic photos,titanic pictures,titanic plot,titanic posters,Titanic questions,titanic questions answered,titanic quick facts,titanic quiz,titanic quotes,Titanic radio book,titanic re release,titanic read,titanic real facts,titanic real story,titanic re-release,titanic review,Titanic sample answer,Titanic sample essay,titanic school,titanic second-class,Titanic shipwreck,Titanic sinking,titanic sinking,titanic sister ship,Titanic statistics,Titanic steerage,Titanic story,Titanic student,Titanic study aid,titanic summary,titanic survivors,titanic telegraph,titanic the experience,titanic the movie,titanic theme,Titanic theories,titanic third-class,titanic timeline,Titanic tragedy,titanic trailer,titanic true,titanic true story,titanic tv,titanic tv programme,titanic underwater,titanic unsinkable,Titanic victims,titanic victims,titanic voyage,titanic what happened,titanic what really happened,titanic what year,titanic wireless,Titanic wreck,Titanic writer,titanic year,Titanic YouTube,Greg Ward,
As the UK inquiry put it, stories soon circulated “that the third-class passengers had been unfairly treated; that their access to the Boat Deck had been impeded, and that when at last they reached that deck the first- and second-class passengers were given precedence in getting places in the boats.” The inquiry delivered a no-nonsense verdict – “There appears to have been no truth in these suggestions”.
However, only when the question is phrased in its most extreme form – “Was a systematic, ship-wide policy enforced to keep all third-class passengers below decks in order to give other passengers priority in boarding the lifeboats?” – is it possible to answer it with a definite “no”. Qualify that assertion in any way, and the doubts immediately creep in.
To avoid the spread of disease, the owners of the Titanic were obliged, throughout the voyage, to deny third-class passengers access to the upper decks. In some areas, locked gates were used; elsewhere, a sailor was stationed at a moveable barrier. All it took to “impede” the third-class passengers was for the normal restrictions to remain in place.
Restrictions clearly were placed on the male third-class passengers. On the upper decks, when the call went out for “women and children first”, the “gentlemen” were free to escort their wives and families to the lifeboats, and then stand nobly aside. From the third-class areas, however, only the women and children were initially allowed to leave. Their menfolk were forced to remain below.
We don’t know which gates and stairways were locked at the time of the collision, and which were subsequently locked or unlocked. Neither is anyone even sure what the gates actually looked like. Movies depict them as floor-to-ceiling lattices, but they may have been simply waist-high gates that could be easily climbed in an emergency.
for the full story, read the Rough Guide to the Titanic . . .
Were the third-class passengers
held back from the lifeboats?
Were the gates locked below decks?
One of the great mysteries about the sinking of the Titanic is that although more than two thousand people were on board, and the ship took well over two hours to sink, witnesses described the Boat Deck as being empty when certain lifeboats were being loaded.
When the crew called for women and children to step forward, there were none to be seen, and the boats departed half full.
So where was everybody? And most specifically, where were the third-class passengers? Controversy is still raging as to whether they were in some way held back from reaching the lifeboats.
There’s no arguing with the statistics. Of the female first-class passengers, 97 percent survived, as opposed to 46 percent of the women in third class. All except one of the children travelling first and second class survived, compared to only 33 of the 84 children in third class. And only 16 percent of third-class male passengers survived, which was just under half the rate for men in first class.
To read more about the Titanic, click here, or on the links below:
• What really happened on the night the Titanic went down?
• Did the band play on as the ship was sinking?
• If the Titanic was unsinkable, why did she never complete her maiden voyage?
text © Greg Ward, images Library of Congress archives
