Forgotten Souls of the Titanic

Forgotten Souls of the Titanic

Third class passengers

It is common, indeed instinctive, and normal reaction for us to envisage scenes from the 1997 movie ‘The Titanic’ starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet and credible cast of other supporting actors whenever we hear the word ‘Titanic’.  Spectacular as this epic movie attempted to re-create the catastrophic disaster of the maiden voyage of the Titanic when it struck iceberg on 12 April 1912 and sunk with massive loss of life. In my opinion the movie fails (in my opinion) to portrays the human element, the lives and expectations of the second and third class passengers who made up the bulk of the human cargo that is (if human were recorded as cargo not as passengers).

According to official record on board when the Titanic officially commenced its maiden journey through the Atlantic it had 337 first-class passengers with an estimated combined net worth of $500 million. The richest of all was John Jacob Astor aged 47.  His father (Jack) owned very significant portion of New York and did not have to shout about it.  In fact Jack was the forefather developer that started the forest and jungle of skyscrapers of today’s New York – Titanic of sort on dirt – with similar class differentiation to the Titanic on 12 April 1912. The average price for shared first-class cabin ticket is said to be in the region of 55 pound sterling.

There were only 271 second-class passengers representing forty percent of the Titanic second-class capacity which is an indication of the prevailing competition from German and Italian shipping lines. One of the second class passengers, and perhaps the only passenger on the Titanic was a black man by the name of Joseph Laroche born in Haiti in 1886.  Laroche with his French wife and two children was on his way back to Haiti after experiencing intolerable racial prejudice working or studying engineering. It is noteworthy to remember that in 1912 men were the bread winners and their wives were seen and treated as human appendage.  Despite their second-class passenger status on the   Titanic women status did not change and were not seen or treated anything other than human appendage.  The official price paid for second class ticket was 26 pounds sterling.

There were 712 third-class passengers some seventy percent of capacity.  As this blog is concerned with the forgotten souls of the third-class passengers it is only pertinent to take closer look at the nationalities, embarkation, and official recorded number of those passengers.  Four hundred and ninety seven (497) embarked at South Hampton. One hundred and two (102) embarked at Cherbourg and one hundred and thirteen (113) embarked at Queenstown.  The estimated breakdown of nationalities of the third-class passengers were: 118 British, 113 Irish, 104 Swedes, 79 Lebanese, 55 Finns, 43 Americans, 33 Bulgarians, 25 Norwegians, 22 Belgians, 12 Armenians, 8 Chinese, 7 Danes, 5 Frenchmen, 4 Italians, 4 Greeks, 4 Germans, 4 Swiss, and 3 Portuguese.  There were significant number of others which included sizeable numbers from what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Russia.  The discrepancy between the official number and the number from the various nationalities can be explained by the notoriety of the practice of travel agents, middle men, bribery, and official record keeping. 

This blog is intended as factual background to the human souls of the passengers who were heading in search of new life and opportunities.  The next blog in this series on the Titanic I will focus on the forgotten souls of the officially recorded 79 Lebanese passengers.  Why? Because the true number of Lebanese on the Titanic was significantly greater than that officially recorded and also I will try to answer the question as to why a tiny country like Lebanon, a mere spec on a world map, could have such a number of passengers on the maiden voyage of the unsinkable Titanic across the Atlantic in April 1912.   

  

Meantime, until the next blog it is important to note and remember that in 1943 Nazi Germany made a propaganda movie called ‘The Titanic’ which was intended to depict Britain as a society ruled by greedy wealthy ruling class that sways great control and influence.  It was Hitler’s way of saying he was not against the English populous before starting his bombing campaign of London.  Needless to say unlike the 1997 Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet movie the German movie was not shown in Germany and despite the massive expense involved in making the movie it proved to be financial disaster.  Despite all this credit must be given to men and women who undertake such challenges.

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