All About Cruises

Tag: edward smith

  • The Titanic Shipwreck: Who is to Blame?

    Any time there is a shipwreck, or any time there is a disaster that isn’t caused by the forces of nature, for that matter, we look to assign blame. This is doubly true of catastrophes of the first proportion, and the Titanic shipwreck, which claimed over 1,500 lives, would certainly seem to qualify as such. So, who is responsible for the Titanic shipwreck? Was it the captain of the Titanic, Edward Smith, or was it someone else, or perhaps a combination of a few different people? Or is the Titanic shipwreck the rare kind of disaster to which no one can be assigned blame?  

    When a ship is involved in a wreck, the first person that gets blamed is generally the captain. And so we must start by asking if Captain Smith is to blame for the Titanic shipwreck. Many argue, naturally enough, that a captain is ultimately responsible for the ship he sails. At the end of the day, the captain must bear the responsibility for a ship’s successes and failures. By that logic, Smith is of course ultimately responsible for the Titanic sinking.

    However, a lot complicates this rather simplistic view, as Smith was certainly not a negligent captain, both in general and with respect to his commanding of the Titanic in particular. (Smith was in charge of the Titanic, at the time the largest ship in the world, precisely because he was regarded as such an outstanding captain.) It was claimed by some at the time of the disaster that Smith ignored warnings about icebergs, but in fact he registered them in the chart room as he sailed, according to Gary Cooper, who wrote the book Titanic Captain: The Life of Edward John Smith.  And of course the iceberg warnings were merely warnings. They didn’t necessarily demand that the Titanic alter its course or speed of sailing. It is true that Smith was sailing at nearly top speed through an icy region of the sea, but given the conditions during the night of the iceberg collision – calm and clear – Smith’s approach was in line with what any other captain would have done, and in fact several captains from other ships said as much at the inquiries into the disaster.

    Moreover, the iceberg that the Titanic struck was particularly difficult to see. Since the sea was so calm, water was not breaking against the iceberg, which would have made the iceberg easier to see from a distance. Still further, the iceberg the Titanic hit was not white like most icebergs. Rather, it was almost clear, and for this reason it reflected the dark night sky off of it (such icebergs are actually called “blackbergs”), making it extremely difficult to see even at relatively short distances. (Blackbergs are rather like patches of black ice that can’t be easily seen on surfaces.)

    If we grant that it is at least understandable that the iceberg was struck (which of course many are not willing to do), there is still the unresolved matter of why there were not enough lifeboats on board the ship to save every passenger. On this matter, there is an easier person to blame: J. Bruce Ismay, the managing director of White Star Line, the cruise line that owned the Titanic. Although Alexander Carlisle of Harland and Wolff (the company that designed and built the Titanic) lobbied for the inclusion of more lifeboats as the company was finishing its design for the ship, Ismay did not agree to the addition. To be sure, the Titanic actually had more lifeboat seats than were required by law at the time, but it still seems questionable at best to send so many people to sea without any means of escape should something go wrong. Ismay had the chance to include more lifeboats and he didn’t.

    So, it is difficult to say who exactly is to blame for the Titanic shipwreck. Surely Captain Smith must be held at least partially responsible because he was in charge of guiding the ship, but it is equally true that he didn’t run the ship into the iceberg because he was being entirely negligent. Ismay also deserves some blame for not authorising more lifeboats to be put on board the ship, but, strangely, the provisions he did provide exceeded those required by law. It is worth noting that Ismay was one of the few men to survive the disaster, for which he was ceaselessly ridiculed. Captain Smith remained on the vessel till the end, going down with the ship.

  • The Captain of the Titanic

    Who was the captain of the Titanic? This is a simple question about a complicated man: Edward Smith, or, if you please, Edward John Smith. The legacy of Captain Smith is hard to ultimately make sense of because he, as the Titanic captain, bears at least some of the responsibility for the Titanic shipwreck, but Smith was also a gifted captain with an extremely impressive career at sea. (You don’t become the captain of the Titanic, a major transatlantic vessel, without first earning your stripes.) We all know about the Titanic shipwreck, and we also know that Smith was the captain of the Titanic, but what of the rest of his career? What did he do before he become the captain of the Titanic, and why was he made the Titanic captain anyway? To these questions we seek answers as we explore the life of Edward Smith, Titanic captain.

    Edward Smith was born in England to a father of the same name and a mother by the name of Catherine Hancock. Until he was 13, he attended a British school in Etruria, a suburb of Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. At first, he worked at the Etruria Forge, where he operated a steam hammer (a power hammer driven by steam). But by the time he was 17, he made a decisive move toward his future career at sea, moving to Liverpool to begin an apprenticeship on a ship.

    In 1880, when Smith was 30, he began working for White Star Line, the shipping company that owned the Titanic. At first, he was a Fourth Officer on the SS Celtic, but after only seven years of service for White Star, during which time he worked on the company’s liners that went to Australia and New York, he was placed in command of his first ship, the Republic. A year later, he joined the Royal Naval Reserve, meaning he could be called to serve in the Royal Navy (just like reserve members in other armies or navies).

    The next two decades of Smith’s career consisted more or less of a string of successes. In 1895, he was put in charge of Majestic, a ship that was used to transport troops to South Africa. He made the voyage twice, and both times without incident. For his efforts, King Edward VII awarded him the Transport Medal. Smith was so well-regard as a captain that starting in 1904, he commanded any new ship in White Star’s fleet on its maiden voyage (eventually including the Titanic). This started with his commanding of Baltic, then the largest ship in the world, which he sailed for three years until moving to Adriatic.

    Given his success, Smith was the natural captain to call upon to command the ships in the Olympic class, to which the Titanic belonged. His service for the Olympic class began with his commanding of the Olympic ship, at the time the largest vessel in the world. With Smith captaining the Olympic, two incidents occurred. The first was a minor event involving a tug boat that was sucked into the backwash of the Olympic as it pulled into port. The tug boat was able to get back to shore, however. More seriously, on another voyage the Olympic collided with HMS Hawke. The collision did damage to Smith’s ship, which had to return to shore after the event occurred, delaying the Olympic’s planned voyage considerably.

    Despite these incidents, Smith was put in command of the Titanic for its maiden voyage, and we all know how that voyage ends (but if you want to learn more about it, check out our article about the Titanic disaster). The extent to which Smith is responsible for the Titanic shipwreck is a question for another article (and we are working on that article, so stay tuned), but regardless, Smith was much more than the captain of the Titanic. He was one of the most respected captains in the world and commanded some of the finest ships of his era. At least this much ought to be remembered.

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