Frances Wilson - How to Survive the Titanic

Frances Wilson was educated at Oxford University and lectured on nineteenth- and twentieth-century English literature for fifteen years before becoming a full-time writer. Her books include Literary Seductions: Compulsive Writers and Diverted Readers and The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth: A Life, which won the British Academy Rose Mary Crawshay Prize. She reviews widely in the British press and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She divides her time between London and Normandy.

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Literary Seductions: Compulsive Writers and Diverted Readers

The Courtesan’s Revenge

The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth: A Life

Jacket design by Richard Ljoenes

Front jacket painting of Titanic © Look and Learn/The Bridgeman Art Library International

Front jacket photograph of Ismay © The Granger Collection

All other art by iStockphoto

HOW TO SURVIVE THE TITANIC. Copyright © 2011 by Frances Wilson. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

First published in Great Britain in 2011 by Bloomsbury.

FIRST U.S. EDITION

Map by ML Design

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

ISBN: 978-0-06-209454-4

EPub Edition © 2011 ISBN: 9780062094568

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In June 1907, the “White Star Line had moved their terminal from Liverpool to Southampton to make it easier for the smart passengers from London to reach”.

The northern track, 200 miles shorter than the southern track, was followed between August and December. The southern track was followed for the rest of the year.

In his memoirs, Lightoller wrote: ‘Wireless reports were coming in throughout the day from various ships, of ice being sighted in different positions… the one vital report that came through but which never reached the bridge, was received at 9.40 p.m. from the Mesaba … the position this ship gave was right ahead of us and not so many miles distant. The wireless operator was not to know how close we were to this position, and therefore the extreme urgency of the message.’ (Lightoller, Titanic, p. 280.)

The Titanic contained an internal telegraph signalling system by which commands from the bridge could be shown on the engine room telegraph indicator. The positions on the clock-shaped indicator went from Stop, to Slow Ahead, Ahead One Quarter, Half Ahead, Ahead Three Quarters and Full Ahead.

Lawrence Beesley agreed. He describes how the Titanic, having initially stopped dead still, then ‘resumed her course, moving very slowly through the water… I think we were all glad to see this: it seemed better than standing still.’ (Beesley, The Loss of the SS Titanic, p. 30.)