What Life Was Really Like for Titanic’s Third Class Passengers

What Life Was Really Like for Titanic’s Third Class Passengers

As you know I have been trying to find out more about the people who travelled on the Titanic. It got me thinking about what life was like on-board. When we think about the Titanic today, we often imagine the grand staircases, the elegant dining rooms, and the wealth of the first-class passengers. But the majority of the people on board were not wealthy at all. Many were just ordinary families, labourers, and young men and women who were chasing the promise of a new life across the Atlantic.

For many steerage passengers, the journey to the ship had already been long. Some had travelled across Europe, carrying a small number of possessions. Many were saying their goodbyes as they left for good. When they arrived at the port in Southampton, they joined the crowds of other people who were waiting to board. Before they could enter the ship, steerage passengers were required to go through medical inspections. Officials checked their eyes, their skin, and their general health, looking for signs of infectious disease. This was done because American immigration authorities were strict, and shipping companies could be fined or forced to return passengers if they arrived unfit to enter the United States. For many emigrants, this must have been a tense moment. After such a long journey, the thought of being turned away would have been frightening.

Once they were cleared, they walked up the gangways and onto what must have seemed like an enormous ship. For many of them, the Titanic was far larger and more modern than anything they had ever seen before. Even though they were travelling in steerage, the ship still represented something hopeful. Compared with many earlier emigrant ships of the nineteenth century, the Titanic’s third-class accommodation was actually considered quite advanced.

The cost of a steerage ticket varied depending on the passenger and the arrangement of the cabin, but many paid roughly £7 to £9 for the voyage, this equals roughly £800–£1,000+ today. That was a significant amount of money for working families, and some may have saved for years or relied on relatives already living in America to send the fare. But compared with the hundreds of pounds paid by wealthy first-class passengers, it shows how different the experiences on the ship were.

Steerage accommodation on Titanic was basic but cleaner and more organised than on many earlier ships. In older vessels, steerage passengers had often been crowded into large dormitory-style rooms with rows of bunks and little privacy. On Titanic, however, many were placed in small cabins that held two to six people. These rooms were simple, they had iron bunk beds, mattresses, blankets, and a small washbasin. They were not luxurious, but for many passengers they may have felt surprisingly comfortable.

Families were usually kept together where possible, and single men and single women were housed in separate areas of the ship. Regulations required this separation, and it also reflected the social attitudes of the time. Corridors and stairways connected the steerage areas to dining rooms and open deck spaces where passengers could gather.

Meals in steerage were also an improvement over what many emigrants had previously experienced. On older ships, passengers sometimes had to bring their own food or cook for themselves in crowded conditions. On Titanic, however, meals were provided. The third-class dining room served simple but filling food such as soup, bread, roast meat, potatoes, stews, porridge, and tea or coffee. Fresh bread was also baked daily. The meals were not elaborate, but they were warm and regular, which must have been reassuring for travellers who had faced uncertainty for much of their journey.

Passengers created their own forms of entertainment. In the evenings, groups gathered to talk, sing songs, or play music. Many emigrants came from Ireland, Scandinavia, and Eastern Europe, and they brought their traditions with them. It is believed that fiddles, pipes, and other instruments were played in the steerage spaces, and there may have been dancing as well. For a moment, the worries of leaving home may have been replaced by laughter.

Even so, there were clear differences between the classes on the ship. First-class passengers enjoyed grand cabins, luxurious lounges, and elaborate multi-course meals served by stewards. Second-class travellers had comfortable cabins and dining rooms that resembled respectable hotels. Steerage passengers, by contrast, had much simpler surroundings and were generally restricted to their own areas of the ship. The separation reflected the social hierarchy of the early twentieth century, where class divisions were still strongly upheld.

For many in steerage, the ship was not simply a vessel. It was a bridge between the life they were leaving behind and the one they hoped to build in America. They were farmers, labourers, young couples, and children who dreamed of opportunity and a better future.

Knowing what happened later makes their journey feel even more poignant. When they first stepped on board, they could not possibly have imagined the tragedy.

When you think about those steerage passengers standing on the decks, looking out across the ocean and dreaming of a new beginning, do you think the Titanic represented more hope than luxury for most of the people who sailed on her?

Image info:

Typical 3rd-class cabin on the Titanic 

Date: 1st ofApril 1912

Image info: Postcard of third Class dining saloon on Olympic and Titanic. Date: 1910-1971 Author: White Star Line

Image info: Third Class smoke room aboard Olympic and Titanic postcard. Date: 1910-1911 Author: White Star Line

How Ancient Civilisations Created the Days of the Week and Early Calendars.

How Ancient Civilisations Created the Days of the Week and Early Calendars.

I have been thinking about something that shapes all of our lives, and yesterday I touched on it with a post about how people in the past told the time. So carrying on with that theme I thought I would try and find out about the history of time, not in the sense of hours and minutes but in the calender. Every week we move from Monday to Sunday automatically. Our calendars lay out our work, our plans, our holidays, and even our memories. But at some point in the past, these ideas had to be created. People had to learn how to organise time into days, weeks, months, and years. I wanted to try find out a little of how this system developed.

Long before written calendars existed, people measured time by watching the natural world. Just like we discussed yesterday, the rising and setting of the sun created the most obvious pattern for the day. Daylight meant work and activity, while darkness was a time for rest. Farmers in particular depended on understanding the seasons. The lengthening days of spring was a sign that it was planting time, while the shorter days of autumn meant it was time for harvest. Without a calendar written on paper, the land itself acted as a guide.

As societies became more organised, the need for a clearer way to track time became increasingly important. One of the earliest known calendars was developed in ancient Mesopotamia thousands of years ago. These early calendars were based on the movements of the moon. Each new moon marked the beginning of a new month, such a basic and intriguing concept, that is often lost today. Priests and officials watched the sky so they could announce when a new month had begun. The sky must have carried a sense of mystery and even authority.

Ancient Egypt developed a different system. Egyptian astronomers observed that the star Sirius appeared in the sky just before sunrise at the same time each year. This event, known as its heliacal rising, usually took place in mid-July thousands of years ago and closely matched the annual flooding of the River Nile. For Egyptian farmers waiting for the life-giving waters that would revive their crops, the reappearance of this star must have been a reassuring sight. It signalled that the river would soon rise and that a new agricultural year was about to begin, in their eyes it must have felt like the heavens gave prosperity to the people on earth. Because of this, the Egyptians created a calendar of 365 days, divided into twelve months. 

Around the same time in another part of the world, the Maya civilisation of Central America also developed an extraordinary understanding of time. The Maya calendar combined several interlocking cycles that helped guide both daily life and religious ceremonies. One of these was a 365-day solar calendar used to organise the agricultural year. The year itself was organised into eighteen months of twenty days each, followed by a short five-day period at the end of the year that many Maya believed was a time of bad luck. While another sacred cycle of 260 days helped priests decide when important rituals should take place. 

The idea of organising days into a seven-day week came later. This system appeared in ancient Babylon and was influenced by astronomy. The Babylonians recognised seven prominent celestial bodies moving across the sky: the Sun, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn. Each day was associated with one of these heavenly bodies. When this idea spread through different cultures, the names changed, but the structure remained the same.

The Romans eventually adopted the seven-day week, though they originally used an eight-day market cycle. Over time, the seven-day system became more widely accepted across the Roman Empire. Many of the names of our modern days still reflect these ancient influences. Sunday was associated with the Sun, Monday with the Moon, while Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday were later linked to Germanic gods when it spread through northern Europe. Saturday kept its connection to Saturn from the Roman world. It is fascinating to realise that every time we say the name of a day, we are unknowingly echoing beliefs from thousands of years ago.

The Romans also introduced one of the most influential calendars in history. In 45 BC, Julius Caesar introduced what became known as the Julian calendar. This system organised the year into 365 days with an extra day added every four years. It was a remarkable improvement for its time and helped bring greater order to administration, farming, and religious festivals across the Roman world. For ordinary people, this must have made life feel more predictable. 

However, the Julian calendar was not perfect. Over centuries, small inaccuracies caused the calendar to drift slightly from the solar year. By the sixteenth century this difference had grown noticeable, especially in relation to important religious dates such as Easter. In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII introduced a revised system known as the Gregorian calendar. This change corrected the drift and created the calendar that much of the world still uses today. The sudden adjustment must have been strange. In some places several days were simply removed from the calendar to bring the system back into alignment.

Calendar’s reveal the human desire to bring some order or control to the passing of time. It Do you think having a calendar made people feel more secure about the future, or did it perhaps make time feel more controlled than before?

 

Image info:

Date: 84-55 BC

Fasti Antiates Maiores

Pre-Julian Roman calendar, found in the ruins of Nero’s villa at Antium (Anzio).

A prison of fear, exile, and the uncertain hope of a new life.

A prison of fear, exile, and the uncertain hope of a new life.

Lets turn our attention to Victorian crime and punishment. I want to look at Newgate Prison and the practice of transporting prisoners to Australia. It is a subject that shows us not only how justice was carried out, but also how ordinary people experienced fear, desperation, and sometimes the hope of a new beginning.

Newgate Prison stood in London for many centuries, near the old city walls, and by the eighteenth century it had become one of the most infamous prisons in Britain. It was originally rebuilt after the Great Fire of London in 1666, and it was meant to hold people who were awaiting trial at the nearby Old Bailey. In reality, it became more than just a temporary holding jail. Men, women, and even children could be confined there for weeks or even months while they waited for their fate to be decided.

The conditions in Newgate were harsh and really unpleasant. It was overcrowded and prisoners were often forced to live in dark, damp cells that could smell of sickness and even of waste. Because of these conditions, disease spread. Those that could pay, could get better rooms and food, but for the poor there was little choice but to put up with whatever conditions they were forced to live in. It must have been a frightening place, especially for someone who had never been to prison before. There must have been fear, not just of the possible sentence but because the prison itself was a dangerous and brutal place.

During the eighteenth century, Britain was facing a growing problem. Crime was rising in the rapidly expanding cities, and the legal system relied heavily on harsh punishments. Many crimes, even relatively small ones like theft, could technically carry the death penalty. However, judges and juries were often reluctant to execute so many people. The idea of transportation started to become popular.

Transportation meant sending convicted prisoners to Britain’s overseas colonies. For years, criminals were transported to the American colonies. But when the American War of Independence ended in 1783, Britain was no longer able to send prisoners there. The government needed another place where prisoners could be sent.

The answer was Australia. In 1787 the First Fleet of ships left Britain carrying hundreds of convicts to establish a penal colony at New South Wales. They arrived in January 1788. Many of those prisoners had passed through places like Newgate before being moved to prison hulks or transport ships. The journey was long often lasting eight months or more and survival wasn’t guaranteed.

Some prisoners may have felt despair, knowing they might not ever see their families again. Others though, may well have felt a strange sense of relief. Transportation meant life instead of the gallows. In a harsh justice system where execution was a real possibility, exile could feel like a second chance.

The voyage itself was difficult. Convicts were crowded together on ships with limited space and supplies. Seasickness, illness, and exhaustion were common. When they finally arrived in Australia, they faced another uncertain future. Convicts were assigned to labour for the government or private settlers, building roads, farms, and new settlements in a land that was unfamiliar and often unforgiving.

Over time, some transported prisoners eventually earned their freedom. A few even managed to build new lives in the colony. They married, raised families, and became part of the developing society in Australia. What began as a punishment sometimes became an unexpected opportunity to start again.

It makes me wonder what many of them felt in their final moments in Britain, standing on the deck of a transport ship and watching the Britain disappear. 

What do you think-was transportation a cruel punishment, or might some prisoners have seen it as a chance to start over?

Image info:

West View of Newgate 

Date:1810

Artist: George Shepherd

How People Told the Time Long Before Clocks and Watches Existed

How People Told the Time Long Before Clocks and Watches Existed

I’m going to go in a very different direction today. I want to find out more about how people of the past told the time. It is something we rarely stop to consider. Today we can look at a watch, check our phones, or we hear tge dreaded alarm and we instantly know the time. It is precise and make our lives more structured. But for most of human history people had a very different relationship with time. It was not measured by machines but guided by the natural world, by the seasons and but the sunset and sunrise.

In the earliest societies, people told the time by looking at the sky. Sunrise meant the beginning of work, and sunset brought the day to an end. Farmers got up with the sun because crops and animals needed attention. As the sun went higher in the sky, the warmth and length of shadows gave them an idea of how much of the day had passed. People also noticed patterns in nature. Certain birds chirped at dawn, and animals stirred at particular times, the air cooling in evening signalled that the day was ending. Time was not something strict or exact. It was more the rhythm of life. 

As civilisations became more organised, people wanted more reliable ways to track the hours. Thousands of years ago in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, some of the earliest timekeeping devices appeared. These were sundials or shadow clocks aa some called them. They were a simple upright stick or raised pointer that cast a shadow onto a marked surface, and as the sun moved so did the shadow. Priests, farmers, and officials could use this movement to divide the day into sections. For societies that depended on agriculture and religious rituals, this must have been useful.

However, sundials had an obvious weakness. They worked only when the sun was out. To solve this problem, ancient societies developed other devices. One of the these was the water clock, sometimes called a clepsydra. These clocks let water drip from one container into another. Similar to an hour glass that used sand. The water level rose or fell, and that indicated how much time had passed. Water clocks were used in places like Egypt, Greece, Babylon, India, and China. Courts and temples used them to help measure speeches, religious ceremonies, or even official duties. 

People also used the stars The night sky is a natural clock. Ancient astronomers studied how certain stars crossed the sky at certain times. Sailors also used these patterns to navigate, while priests and scholars used them to organise calendars and rituals. 

As time went on, more inventive methods of timekeeping started to appear. In parts of Asia, incense clocks were created, where lines of incense burned slowly and evenly, marking intervals of time. In medieval Europe, candle clocks were sometimes used. Candles were marked at intervals so that as the wax melted, people could estimate how much time had passed. These devices were simple but effective.

During the Middle Ages, timekeeping began to be more communal. Monasteries organised the day around fixed periods of prayer known as the canonical hours. Monks were required to gather at precise times, day and night, for worship. So bells were rung to signal these hours, and the sound was heard across the villages. Even those who were not part of the monastery became used to them and would often use them to help guide their day. Time was slowly becoming something shared.

By the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, mechanical clocks had begun to appear in most European towns. These were placed in church towers and on public buildings. They were not very accurate by modern standards, but they had a powerful effect on daily life. Instead of relying entirely on sunlight or nature, people could now hear bells marking the hours. Time was no longer just part of nature. It was becoming something structured and regulated.

The importance of time increased even further during the Industrial Revolution. Factories, trains, and urban life required people to arrive at precise times of day. Work shifts began at fixed hours, and lateness often meant a dock in wages. This changed how people experienced their days. Life became faster and more organised, but perhaps also more pressured.

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries another unusual profession appeared in many industrial towns, particularly in Britain. These were the “knocker-uppers.” Before alarm clocks became common, workers paid someone to wake them at the correct time. The knocker-upper would walk the streets in the early morning, tapping on bedroom windows with a long stick or blowing a small pea shooter to get someone’s attention. For factory workers who depended on being punctual, this service could mean the difference between keeping or losing a job.

Looking back across history, the way people understood time has changed enormously. For early communities it was natural. Later, with inventions and industry, it became something measured, controlled, and sometimes even rushed. What was once guided by the sun and stars gradually became governed by machines and schedules.

It makes me wonder how people must have felt during these changes. Did earlier generations feel calmer living by the rhythm of nature, while later generations felt the pressure of every passing minute?

What do you think it would feel like to live in a world where the sun and the seasons decided your day rather than a clock?

 

Image info:

A water clock (clepsydra)

Date: 1753

From Titanic Survivor to World Traveller: The Remarkable Life of Georgette Madill

From Titanic Survivor to World Traveller: The Remarkable Life of Georgette Madill

I have recently been finding out about some of the people who were aboard the RMS Titanic. Georgette Alexandra Madill was one of those people. She was lucky to survive and went on to live a long life.

Georgette Alexandra Madill was born on the 15th of March 1896 in St Louis, Missouri in the United States. She was the daughter of George Alexander Madill, who was a respected legal professional with Irish heritage, and Elisabeth Walton McMillan. Georgette grew up in a wealthy family and her father already had two sons from a previous marriage, they were much older than her.

On the 11th of December 1901, when Georgette was still very young, her father died, leaving her mother widowed with a small child. In 1904, Elisabeth remarried Edward Scott Robert, a lawyer who had been a close friend of Georgette’s father. For a while the family seemed to be stable, they continued living in their home on Lindell Boulevard in St Louis.

But tragedy hit the family again when Georgette’s stepfather died in December 1911. Probably looking for a break from the sadness and a change of scenery, Elisabeth decided that it would be good for them to travel. So both her and Georgette, who was only sixteen at the time, began to travel around Europe.

After their time in Europe, they began preparing their return to America in April 1912. After buying thickets, they boarded the RMS Titanic at Southampton as first-class passengers. Georgette’s cousin, Elisabeth Walton Allen, and the family maid, Emilie Kreuchen were also with them. Georgette and her cousin shared cabin B5.

For Georgette, the voyage must have been exciting. The Titanic was promoted as the largest ship in the world and it represented modern luxury beyond many other ships in its class. For a young sixteen year old woman, crossing the Atlantic on such a ship may well have felt like an adventure.

As we know, everything change on the night of the 14th of April 1912, when the ship hit an iceberg. At first many passengers struggled to believe that anything serious had happened. The Titanic had been widely believed to have been practically unsinkable. But reality soon began to set in and confusion and fear spread through the ship.

Georgette, her mother, her cousin, and their maid were eventually able to make their way to the lifeboats. They were given a place in lifeboat number 2 and were lowered down into the Atlantic. Sitting in the lifeboat, watching the liner vanish under the water, must have been a terrifying experience. 

They were later rescued along with all the other survivors by the RMS Carpathia, after having spent hours waiting in the darkness and cold. They were then taken to New York, large ocean liners were often greeted with excitement, but the mood could not have been more different. News of the disaster had already spread around the world.

For Georgette, the disaster could have easily cast a shadow over her life. But remarkably, she seemed determined not to let it define her future.

Georgette continued to travel widely and became involved with the Red Cross. During the First World War she travelled as far as Japan, China, and even Siberia. After the war she continued to explore Europe, visiting countries like Italy, France, Switzerland, Greece, and Britain.

In October 1931 she married Alfred Joseph Anthony Alexander Gilbert Bagshawe Mattei, a London-born barrister of Maltese heritage. They lived in London and during the Second World War her husband served in British intelligence and was later honoured with an MBE.

Georgette and her husband did not have children, but they remained close and continued to live in London for decades. 

She died on the 14th of February 1974 at the age of seventy-seven and was buried in Clevedon Cemetery in Somerset. Her husband’s ashes were later placed beside her.

Do you think surviving an event like the sinking of the Titanic would have made someone more cautious about life, or perhaps encouraged them to live it even more boldly?

The Final Hours of Anne Boleyn: How Did England’s Queen Face Her Fate?

The Final Hours of Anne Boleyn: How Did England’s Queen Face Her Fate?

I love looking into history on a more personal level, to look into the more private moments from history rather than just the huge and magnificent events. So, I want to discover more about the last hours of Anne Boleyn’s life. 

Anne was arrested on the 2nd of May 1536 at Greenwich Palace, she was taken to the Tower of London and was held in the Queens House. On the 15th of May 1536, she was found guilty of treason. The charges against her included adultery and plotting the king’s death, accusations that many people believe are untrue. Whatever the truth is, she had been found guilty, and Anne was now forced to face execution.

Religion was hugely important in the sixteenth century, and it influenced nearly everything people did. Anne was well known for her interest in reformist religious ideas. She spent the evening of the 18th of May preparing for her death, a priest was sent for to hear her final confession and to administer the last rites. She reportedly took Holy Communion and swore upon the sacrament that she had been faithful to the king. This must have been hugely emotional, to say this in front of God and a priest, suggest to me that she was being honest. She would have wanted to leave the world with her conscience clear.

Anne had been told earlier that her executioner would be brought from France, Henry had arranged for a swordsman to be used to carry out the sentence. The delay in him arriving meant that for a while she was unclear when the sentence was going to be carried out. This must have given her both hope and anxiety. She may well have seen this as an opportunity for Henry to change his mind, sadly it was not to be. On the morning of the 19th of May she is said to have asked the constable of the Tower when it would happen. When she was told that it would not happen until later on, she nervously joked about her “little neck.” It seems that even when her situation was unimaginably dire, she was absolutely determined to maintain her composure and dignity.

During these final hours Anne spoke with her ladies, they had been attending her during her time in the Tower. They had watched her fall from favour, and were said to all be really upset. Anne seemed determined that she would face death with dignity. Some accounts suggest she tried to comfort them, showing a remarkable calmness that surprised those around her. I am not sure I could keep the same composure myself. Whether this was courage, resignation, or the strength she saw was expected of a former queen, it must have taken extraordinary self-control.

For me one of the hardest parts of her final hours for me, was the fact that it seems she was not allowed to see her daughter Elizabeth, who was not quite three years old at the time. Elizabeth was living at Hatfield House in Hertfordshire, away from London and court. It is difficult for us to understand how Anne must have been feeling, but what I can say for sure is that she would have definitely been thinking about her child in those final hours. This must have affected them both so profoundly, it seems like an additional punishment from Henry.

During her final hours Anne also made practical arrangements. She gave away her personal belongings and prepared herself for what was awaiting her. Witnesses would go on to say that Anne paid particular attention to how she looked, she chose clothes that were suitable. She also ensured that her hair could be easily moved from the neck for the swordsman’s. It seems that although she was very much out of control of the situation she was in, she was determined to have composure, controlling the very little things could.

Shortly before the execution she was taken from her chambers to the scaffold that had been built in the Tower. A small crowd of witnesses had already gathered there. Anne addressed them briefly, she even avoided any direct criticism of the king and instead she asked that people to pray for him. Was this genuine loyalty, protecting her daughter, or simply the expectations placed upon someone facing death in this way. We will never know her reasons or inner most thoughts, but she faced death with grace.

Moments later she knelt down calmly and was blindfolded. Those present also noted the remarkable composure she continued to show. Whatever fears she had, she didn’t show them, she remained an image of dignity and acceptance as the French executioner carried out the sentence. What a remarkably strong women.

Do you think that Anne believed she would be remembered positively by history?

Image info:

Posthumous painting of Anne Boleyn at Hever Castle, c. 1583

Benjamin Guggenheim: Courage and Composure on the Titanic’s Final Night

Benjamin Guggenheim: Courage and Composure on the Titanic’s Final Night

I have recently been watching documentaries about the sinking of the Titanic. I often return to this subject because I find it so immensely fascinating, as do so many others. I wanted to find out about some of the people aboard. We have talked about the Unsinkable Molly Brown and many have heard of Jacob Astor, but who else was aboard on that fateful night? I want to share with you the story of Benjamin Guggenheim, a wealthy American businessman whose actions during the disaster became one of the most remembered stories from that terrible night.

Benjamin Guggenheim was born on the 26th of October 1865 in Philadelphia in the United States. He was the fifth of seven sons. The family had emigrated from Switzerland to America in search of better opportunities. Benjamin’s father was successful in mining and business. Wealth gave him opportunities that many people at the time could only dream of.

He was the first member of his family to attend university and entered Columbia College in 1882. However, academia did not seem to hold his interest for long. He found many of the subjects boring and left before he completed his degree. Instead, he continued his education at Peirce School of Business, where he focused on the practical side of commerce. It was clear that he was expected to work in the family’s business.

In 1894 he married Florette Seligman, the daughter of a prominent banking family. They had three daughters, including Marguerite “Peggy” Guggenheim, who would later become famous as an art collector and patron. Their marriage appears to have been distant at times. Benjamin travelled often for business, he spent long periods abroad. He even had an apartment in Paris. His life moved within wealthy circles travel, and social expectations that kept him constantly on the move.

In April 1912 Guggenheim was one two thousand two hundred and twenty-four people to board the British ocean liner RMS Titanic for her maiden voyage across the Atlantic. Titanic had been promoted as the largest and most luxurious passenger ship. It would be a ship that would have appealed to Guggenheim. He was at the travelling with several other people, including Victor Giglio, his chauffeur René Pernot, and a French singer named Léontine Aubart along with her maid. They had first class tickets as you would expect, so they would have enjoyed the very best of everything. Like many on board, Guggenheim would have expected a comfortable and luxurious journey to New York in what many believed was the safest and most advanced ship in the world.

On the night of the 14th of April 1912, as we all know, the ship hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic. Guggenheim and his secretary were apparently asleep and were woken up sometime after midnight. At first, the seriousness of the situation was not all together clear. Many passengers believed that it was only a minor incident. Guggenheim may well have also believed this, but as the night unfolded, the reality became clear. 

Once he was on deck, Guggenheim began helping to evacuate. Witnesses later said that they saw trying to encourage women and children to board the life boats. At some point he returned to his cabin and changed into formal evening clothes. He was said to have explained that he and his secretary had “dressed in our best” and were prepared to go down like gentlemen. It was a moment that has often been remembered as an attempt to face the end with dignity and composure.

Before the final lifeboats were lowered, Guggenheim asked a steward to pass on a message to his wife in New York, saying that he had done his best to fulfil his duty. He continued helping passengers into life boats until the last moments. His companions Victor Giglio and René Pernot also remained on board. Sadly, none of them survived when the Titanic sank in the early hours of the 15th of April 1912. The Titanic tragically took more than fifteen hundred lives with her.

Stories of Guggenheim’s behaviour that night spread quickly. For his family, just like the thousands of others, the loss must have been devastating, but there may also have been pride that he had spent his final hours helping others rather than seeking safety.

When we think about the chaos and fear that must have filled the decks of the Titanic, it raises an interesting question. If we had been standing there that night, not knowing whether we would live or die, what choices do you think we would have made?