Titanic Crew Facts: Horrifying History Of The Workers That Set Sail

The RMS Titanic was a massive passenger ship that sank in the North Atlantic ocean in 1912.

The ship set off on its maiden voyage from Southampton, England, on April 10, 1912. Before setting sail for New York City, the ship made stops in France and Ireland.

The disaster of the Titanic is seen as one of the most famous catastrophes to occur in modern history.

The story of the Titanic has inspired various films, dramas, books, and musicals. The Titanic was, at its time, the largest ever ship to set sail in the world.

However, the journey would not go as planned as the ship, and its crew experienced various unfortunate events that could have prevented the ship's sinking.

The lack of binoculars on the ship and several unheard warnings the Titanic received of the presence of an iceberg in its path played a huge role in the ship colliding with the iceberg.

Thousands of lives were lost in the disaster, and the lucky survivors who went on to live their lives would tell the world the events that followed the collision of the Titanic with the iceberg in its path.

In this article, let's explore more facts about the Titanic, why it sank, and Titanic crew facts.

If you like this article about Titanic crew facts, be sure to check out articles about how big was the titanic and how cold was the water when the Titanic sank too!

Facts About Titanic's Crew

When the Titanic sank, the ship's band played on! After the collision with the iceberg, the Titanic slowly sank for around two hours and 40 minutes to sink, and to keep the passengers calm; the Titanic band played for two hours and five minutes!

Out of the estimated 885 crew divisions on board, only 23 were female crew.

Half of the crew were natives of the nearby English towns. The Titanic left the Southampton docks in the UK, with 700 crew already on board. 724 crew came from Southampton itself, out of which 549 perished.

Some of the crew also involved minor boys, who, too, tragically lost their lives when the Titanic sank.

It is estimated that were 908 crew members on the RMS Titanic, out of which 696 crew members were thought to be dead, 212 crew are thought to have survived. It is estimated that over 76% of the crew perished.

Facts About The Wages Of Titanic's Crew

The wage of the crew of the Titanic depended on how important their jobs were.

The captain was the highest-paid and earned around $6,250 a year, the officers were thought to earn $45-$125 a month, and the stewardesses and stewards earned $17 a month.

Facts About Crew's Responsibilities

The Titanic was the largest vessel in the world by the time of its first voyage and had a staggering amount of crew which numbered around 900. These crew had various responsibilities to keep the sailing as smooth as possible.

Many third and second-class passengers were Europeans immigrating to the United States for a new life. The total number of people on board is more than 2,000.

One able officer was employed as the head of the unlicensed deck crew. 29 crew staff with extra training were in charge of the other crew who carried out the day-to-day functioning of the Titanic.

Two masters at Arms were present on the vessel which held the keys to the firearms cabinet.

There were seven quartermasters (all survived); these people were highly trained sailors and worked on the ship's bridge to steer, manage signals, and assist in navigational duties.

Six lookouts (all survived) worked in the ship's crow's nest.

The Titanic's engineers were responsible for the smooth running of engines and other equipment that kept the Titanic going. The engineers were the best paid because of their technical expertise on the mechanical components of the ship. In all total, there were 25 engineers on the ship.

The Titanic housed 29 boilers, which further added to 162 furnaces. The furnaces were operated by 13 leading firemen and 163 firemen in the form of Stoker foreman and stokers, respectively. Three leading firemen and 45 others survived the Titanic disaster.

Out of the entire engineering crew, the coal trimmers earned the least. There were 73 coal trimmers on the vessel, and they worked in coal bunkers situated on top and between the boilers. Shovels and wheelbarrows were used to move the coal around. Around 20 of the trimmers survived.

There were 33 greasers on the ship; greasers operated the reciprocating engine room and the turbine. These workers maintained the supplied lubricants and oils for the mechanical equipment. Only four greasers survived.

Six mess hall stewards operated the kitchen crew and served the crew. Four of them served the workers of the engineering crew, and two served the firemen. Only one steward serving the engineering department survived.

There were around 421 women and men who worked in the Victualling Department of the Titanic. These people were divided into the housekeeping, room service, food, and laundry departments. At least 322 stewards worked the public rooms, recreational facilities, public rooms, and dining saloons. Out of 322, only 60 stewards survived the disaster of the Titanic.

Bath stewards maintained the supplies to the communal bathrooms. Bedroom stewards were assigned to each class, with the stewards in the first-rate facilities cleaning, making the bed, and responding to room service requests.

First-rate facility stewards were responsible for three to five rooms, and the second-rate facility stewards maintained up to 10 rooms. The third-class facility stewards maintained at least 25 rooms!

As young as 14, minor boys worked as bellboys aboard the ship. They carried the luggage of passengers when required.

The ship also employed shoe shiners who cleaned the boots of passengers.

The kitchen staff and galley, including bakers, cooks, butchers, chefs, and scallions, accounted for 62 staff members. Around 12 out of the 62 kitchens and galley staff survived.

The only female staff members operated in the form of one matron, two restaurant cashiers, and 20 stewardesses. They had similar work to the male stewards but primarily served women passengers aboard.

Two out of 13 storekeepers survived.

Titanic also had three barbers on board! Herbert Klein worked in the second-class facilities, and Arthur White worked in the first-class facilities.

The Titanic also had a restaurant on the B Deck. The À La Carte Restaurant was a private accommodation maintained by an Italian businessman named A. P. Luigi Gatti. Gatti also owned another À La Carte Restaurant in the RMS Olympic.

The restaurant was open only to first-class passengers. Gatti himself paid the restaurant staff.

A. P. Gatti was present on the Titanic's maiden voyage. The staff consisted of waiters, cooks, cleaners, and others. Out of an estimated 66 staff members, only two female cashiers and one male clerk survived.

Two British and three Americans worked as the five postal clerks aboard the Titanic. They were responsible for the processing and supervision of outgoing and incoming mails.

Facts About Surviving Crew Members

It is estimated that around 212 crew of the Titanic survived the disaster. Many survivors went back to living their normal lives and told tales about it.

Four crew members actually failed to get on the ship before it set sail! Thomas Slade, Penney, and the brothers Alfred and Bertram were the crew that never made it to the Titanic.

Charles Lightoller, the second officer of the Titanic, wrote a book describing their experience with death aboard the Titanic. Lightoller was credited with the idea of prioritizing women and children. He stayed on the vessel until the end and managed to survive by clinging to a capsized lifeboat before he was rescued.

Charles Lightoller died at the age of 78, after living a full life which consisted of saving 122 soldiers in Dunkirk in 1940!

Violet Jessop, a stewardess, nurse, and memoirist, also known as the Queen of sinking ships, was a surviving crew member of the RMS Titanic; along with that, she survived two other ships sinking in the form of the HMHS Britannic in 1916 and the RMS Olympic in 1911!

Charles Joughin, the chief baker of the Titanic, drank whiskey before the ship sank. The heat from the alcohol maintained his body temperature and helped Joughin swim for around 2 hours before he was saved.

The collision with the iceberg left the Titanic with a 300 ft (91.4 m) slice on the ship's hull!

Facts About Dead Crew Members

Captain Edward Smith, the ship captain, remained on the ship and ordered his crew to save their own lives. Lichfield, Staffordshire, has a monument honoring Captain Edward Smith.

The entire engineering crew of the Titanic perished with the vessel. These brave people worked through the catastrophe to keep the ship's pumps, light, and radios operational.

Reginald Lee and Frederick Fleet, the lookout of the Titanic, did not have binoculars on them which made spotting things in the distance difficult. This entire binocular fiasco resulted from the last-minute replacement of the second officer of the Titanic, who forgot to provide the keys to the lockers of the vessel that had the binoculars.

The key was discovered at an auction where it fetched a price of $130,000.

Did You Know?

On May 31, 1911, the Titanic's minute-long launch was observed by around 100,000 people in the city of Belfast.

The launch of the Titanic was postponed by six weeks as the RMS Olympic, Titanic's sister ship, was getting repairs on the same dock.

The iceberg that sunk the Titanic was 100 feet tall, and it is believed that the iceberg was 400 ft (121.9 m) deep in the water. This iceberg is thought to be a piece of the glacier in Greenland.

The Titanic was bound with unfortunate events ever since construction began on it! It is estimated that around eight workers lost their lives during the ship's construction in the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Robert Murphy, William Clarke, Samuel Scott, John Kelly, and James Dobbin are five of the eight known workers. A plaque was installed to immortalize the men.

The RMS Titanic sank within a 400-mile radius of Newfoundland on April 15, 1912. The distress calls of the crew from the North Atlantic Ocean were to no avail as help did not arrive until it was too late.

The Titanic wreck was found as late as 1985! The wreck was found 13,000 ft (3962.4 m) underneath the North Atlantic Ocean. Robert Ballard, an American Oceanographer, found the RMS Titanic in 1985, and until now, there have been 6,000 recovered artifacts from the shipwreck.

'The Wreck of the Titan: Or, Futility' is a novel written by Morgan Robertson. This story has an eerie aura surrounding it as the story was based on the largest ship ever built in the form of the Titan.

Like the Titanic, the Titan was also considered unsinkable; however, it collided with an iceberg and sunk. Half of the passengers lost their lives in the book in the North Atlantic. This book was released 14 years before the event where the Titanic sank!

Masabumi Hosono, the only Japanese passenger on the RMS Titanic, was labeled a dishonorable man in Japan because of his survival effort.

After the release of the movie "Titanic" in 1997, a letter written by Hosono was published in which he stated how he was prepared to die but saw a slight chance of survival when a crew member asked for two more people to get on the lifeboats.

The death toll of the Titanic was caused because the ship excluded 44 extra lifeboats that could have been on the ship. The ship was supposed to carry 64 lifeboats, but it sailed with only 20 lifeboats.

This occurred even after the lifeboat numbers on the ship were far more than what was a requirement by the British Board of Trade.

Most of the passengers on the Titanic were wealthy people! It is assumed that the first-class passenger was worth $500 million!

Out of the $500 million, $87 million is associated with John Jacob Astor IV. Astor lost his life because of the crew prioritizing women and children. It is believed that around $6 million worth of possessions sank with the Titanic.

Alfred Nourney, a surviving passenger of the Titanic, traveled in second class. Still, as soon as the ship sank, he found himself close to one of Titanic's lifeboats nearby the smoking-room of the first class.

He shifted to the first class from the second class and would not have survived if he had not moved classes! Out of the 168 people in the second class, only 14 survived.

Because of the lack of lifeboats, many passengers and crew fell into the freezing water. Lifeboats returned late to prevent being swamped, but they were too late as most of the passengers and crew succumbed to the freezing waters.

Carpathia, the rescue ship, started bringing in Titanic survivors at around 4:10 am. It is estimated that the third class saw the highest number of fatalities.

The Titanic was believed to be the largest passenger ship in the world prior to its maiden voyage. The ship was 269 m (882.5 ft) long!

Lawrence Beesley, a Titanic survivor from the second class facility, was on the set of the movie 'A Night to Remember,' considered to be one of the most accurate recreations of the event. Beesley was thought to have jumped into the sinking ship scene because he wanted to go down with the ship!

Found weeks after the wreck of the Titanic, actress Dorothy Gibson, a Titanic survivor, starred in the movie 'Saved From The Titanic,' dressed in the exact clothes she wore during the disaster. The movie was released in 1912 and became the first film that depicted the events of the Titanic.

The Titanic was lavishly built as it consisted of beautiful staircases, fine dining, and Turkish baths. The first-grade menu included eclairs, filet mignon, and oysters! The first-grade treatment came because of the expensive tickets, which were priced between $1,700-$50,000! However, these expensive facilities were of no use as many first-class passengers died.

Out of the 1,500 people that died, only 340 bodies were retrieved. On discovering the disaster, nearby vessels set out to aid the survivor. The Mackay-Bennett, set from Halifax, managed to pick up 306 bodies. A 19-month-old boy was found wrapped in several layers of clothing, but he could not survive.

Millvina Dean passed away in 2009, and she is thought to be the last survivor to pass away. She was the youngest survivor of the Titanic at just two months of age.

Titanic survivor Richard Norris Williams went on to win an Olympic gold medal and the Wimbledon championship. This was only possible because of his refusal to let the doctors amputate his leg, which was affected due to being under the freezing water for too long.

Milton Hershey, the founder of Hershey's chocolate, had a ticket to the Titanic but did not board the ship!

Edmon and Michel Navratil, two toddler brothers, survived the titanic without their guardian. They were nicknamed the 'Titanic Orphans.' It is assumed that the toddlers were thought to have been taken from their mother by their father, who wanted to bring them to the United States. The father last appeared while putting the toddlers on a lifeboat.

The remnants of the Titanic are slowly perishing because of rust-eating bacteria! Halomonas titanicae, can be found latched to the wreck of the Titanic as it slowly eats away at the steel surfaces and everything that the wreck has to offer.

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created many interesting family-friendly facts for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for Titanic Crew Facts: Horrifying History Of The Workers That Set Sail, then why not take a look at who built the titanic or when was the titanic built?