British Couples in First Class

[Randy Bryan Bigham]

All,

Those of you Titanic passenger-list experts out there - and there are several I know - can hopefully clear up a question I have.

From my limited knowledge of Titanic's people, apart from the obvious ones, I know of only 2 - possibly 3 - British couples in First Class.

There are the Duff-Gordons, of course, but the Pears were English, too, right? Also, though Mrs. Cavendish was American, apparently her husband was British? They are listed with a London address.

Were there no other English couples travelling First Class?

Compared to the number of Americans, there really seem to have been almost no Britishers in First Class at all, from the lists I've seen.

Randy

 

[Ben Holme]

Hello Randy,

You are correct in that the Duff-Gordans, the Pears, and the Cavendishes were the only British couples travelling in first class. The Taylors were residents of London in 1912, but were, in fact, native Americans.

Most of the first class British contigent consisted of single men travelling on business - many of whom were among the most elusive on board (Thomas P. Franklin, Christopher Head, Richard W. Smith, Adolphe Saalfield etc).

Evidently, April was primarily a time for wealthy Americans to return home from visiting Europe. Significantly, it appears most of the wealthy British passengers were travelling on business.

Ben

 

[Kyrila Scully]

Ben,
April is always the time for tourists to go home. Here in Palm Beach County (home of hanging and pregnant chads) we can hardly wait for Easter when the Yanks and Canadians return home for the summer. Now if we could just get a few hurricanes to supply us with all the water they used up! (LOL)
Kyrila

 

[Dave Gittins]

I have strong suspicion that the British upper crust favoured the Cunard Line. British owned and with a better safety record.

Any statistics out there?

 

[Geoff Whitfield]

Dave is correct, the British did prefer Cunard, even though it entailed the journey from London to Liverpool for many passengers. First class service aboard the Cunarders was always said to be better, or if not better, more British than on White Star Liners which, and I say this without offence to any of our members, were always packed with "Those Americans"! This was the attitude of xenophobia at the time, my Grandmother, a frequent Atlantic traveller, wrote to her mother to say that she and her sister had crossed from Southampton on a White Star ship and the trip had been pleasant enough but "We will, of course, return by Cunard!"

 

[Randy Bryan Bigham]

This must be true. In Lady Duff Gordon's case, before taking Titanic, she'd never been on a White Star ship, always preferring Cunard or the German and French ships. The only other White Star Liner I know she took was the Adriatic in 1919.

 

[Gavin Murphy]

Geoff, this is intersting. But I would add the following.

I am under the impression that the Cunarders moored at Fishguard (Wales) as well. Would this have been more convenient to get to than going to L'pool to pick up the fast boats to America?

Pls. correct if I am wrong.

G

 

[Geoff Whitfield]

Hi Gavin, Just try getting to Fishguard from the Home Counties even today!! No, there was a direct boat train to Liverpool from London which took around three and one half hours - much the same as today. Amazingly, Cunarders even called in at the Isle of Man sometimes (I have a postcard of the Mauretania moord at Douglas) wouldn't have believed it until I saw it!

 

[Gavin Murphy]

Thanx Geoff, I was wondering about that. But it seems to me I have seen several pics of the Mauretania moored at Fishguard. Were these just photo-ops?

G

 

[Encyclopedia Titanica]

There is a Hulton Getty book called Liners by Robert Fox that contains several pictures of Cunarders at Fishguard.

 

[Mark Baber]

I don't know about Cunard and Fishguard, but 92 years ago today, White Star's Liverpool-bound ships began calling at at Holyhead, where passengers could transfer to one of three special trains, two for London and one for the Midlands, scheduled to get them home before their ships docked at Liverpool. This service proved not to be very popular and was discontinued in October 1910. (Source: Bonsor's North Atlantic Seaway.)

MAB

 

[Gavin Murphy]

Mark,

Thanx for this. I assume this is similar to the WSL liners stopping at Plymouth on their way back to S'ton. I believe the T was scheduled to stop in at Plymouth on its return maiden voyage, but for some reason which escapes me at the moment, this never occurred.

G

 

[Mike Herbold]

Ben:
In line with your comment about the Elmer Taylors being more American than British, here's an interesting 1912 news article that is part of Mark Baber's note on another thread.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OceanicSteamNavigationCo/files/Titanic%20News%20Articles/Atlantic%20City%20Daily%20Press/May%201912/3%20May%201912

Even though they seemed to spend more time in England than here, they retained their US citizenship, and both eventually died here in the USA.

 

[Ben Holme]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the link; most interesting.

Would I be right in assuming that Elmer's business partner, Fletcher Lambert-Williams was 100% British? It seems strange that the trio didn't share a compartment on the boat train from Waterloo.

Regards,
Ben