The Ship of Dreams William Coalter

Belfast in the early 1900s In the early 1900s Belfast was enjoying the greatest boom in its history. Belfast was best known for ship building Belfast's ship builders were Harland and Wolff Between 1900 and 1930, Harland and Wolff was Belfast's biggest employer by a long way. Thousands of people worked in the ship yards and demand for ocean liners was huge. In the early 1900 Harland and Wolff had employed around 35,ooo people.

Why build the Titanic? The Titanic was built because of competition between White Star Line and Cunard Cunard had launched the two fastest passenger ships in 1907 White Star Line wanted to top this so they based it on size and luxury, not on speed

Building the Titanic The Titanic was built by Harland and Wolff for the White Star Line It took three years to build the Titanic The Titanic was 883 feet long and 104 feet high Seventeen men died during the construction of Titanic and Olympic

The launch of the Titanic Titanic was launched on May 31st It was launched at Harland and Wolff Titanic was launched and put in the water at 12:15 That day cheers went up and it was a day of celebration as three years of hard work had paid off.

Fitting out When the launch was over Titanic was towed to the fitting out basin to be turned into the floating palace she would become. The army of workers would put in the grand staircase, a swimming pool, restaurants, a gymnasium and a hospital

Maiden Voyage The Titanic sailed from Southampton on 10th April Then it picked up passengers at Cherbourg before finally collecting passengers in Queenstown in Ireland 11th April 2,223 people were onboard but no one knew of the danger to come

The Captain Titanic’s Captain was Edward John Smith He joined White Star Line in 1880 He was called ‘The Millionaires Captain’

The Sinking of the Titanic On 14th April 1912 at 23:40 Titanic hit an iceberg It sank in less than three hours and had slipped beneath the North Atlantic at 02:20 Unfortunately there were not enough lifeboats on board Charles Lighttoller was the only officer to survive the disaster. The captain and Thomas Andrews went and took an inspection and decided that there was no hope and the order should be given to abandon ship.

Survivors 23% of the crew were saved and 77% were lost 38% of the passengers were saved and 62% were lost

There were 329 first class onboard, 199 were saved and 130 were lost There were 285 second class onboard, 119 were saved and 166 were lost There were 710 third class onboard, 174 survived and 536 were lost There were 899 crew members onboard, 214 survived and 685 were lost

Rescuing the passengers There were 20 life boats on the Titanic Each lifeboat could carry 65 people when full Only half of the people could get into the lifeboats Unfortunately, many lifeboats left the ship which were not full The first lifeboats were only half full. It was organised kayos. Women and children were put in boats first and some people jumped overboard to try and get in the lifeboats.

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Acknowledgements www.historyofthetitanic.org www.census.nationalarchives.ie Heroes of the Titanic book www.discovery.com www.encyclopediatitanica.org www.titanic-titanic.com