Final Hours in the Marconi Room

[marina_irc]

Gordon: I don’t care how lawyers define negligence (or anything else for that matter). Captain Smith performed to the accepted standard of a British ship‘s captain in April 1912. If you want to declare him guilty by some arbitrary standard of your choosing, that’s your prerogative. The legal authorities brought no criminal action against White Star. As far as I know, nobody brought civil negligence or wrongful death suits against White Star. 2023 is not 1912.

This is not the case. Please refer to:

OCEANIC STEAM NAVIGATION COMPANY, LIMITED, AS OWNER OF THE STEAMSHIP TITANIC, v. MELLOR.
CERTIFICATE FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT.
No. 798. Argued January 13, 14, 1914.-Decided May 25, 1914.

 

[Gordon Mooneyhan]

Bob, I believe that if you check maritime law, a ship's captain is ultimately responsible for the safety of his ship, crew, passengers, and cargo. I believe that the April 14, 1912 events show that Captain Smith failed in his responsibility.

 

[Bob Read]

Gordon: You are echoing the old refrain of personal injury lawyers: “There’s no such thing as an accident. Somebody must be responsible.”

 

[Julian Atkins]

@Bob Read

The Ryan Case that @mitfrc refers to found negligence against in effect the White Star Line in a civil case in the UK that went all the way to appeals.

In fairness, the Marconi Company, who were joined in the proceedings by inter alia White Star, came out of it ok. So you could say that case demolishes any criticism I have of the Marconi Co and Phillips and Bride.

But to get this thread back on track, we know so much more than was known in 1912 and 1913 about the Marconi Companies and it’s links to the Liberal Government.

And so much more about the messages of ice warnings sent over the ether back in April 1912. In fact most of this was available at the time in press reports but was ignored or not considered.

No one has yet to go through the Marconi archive at Oxford properly. Boxes and files of PVs and Marconigrams.

 

[Yuriko Cheng]

The “Islander” was sunk in the Inside Passage by ice in 1901.

I believe it was only reported to be ice, no?

I believe that statement is too restrictive in itself and does not consider all the options that they had that night. You would be right in saying that the accident was inevitable at the course and speed that the Titanic was going just before Fleet saw something in the horizon for the very first time. But that need not have been the case; if Captain Smith had decided differently and ordered his ship slowed down as they neared the known area of ice and perhaps placed an additional lookout at prow level, they could have avoided collision with that iceberg. As Sam said elsewhere, plotting a more southerly course and turning west after they were beyond the ice field was another option.

You do have a point—if the bridge had slowed down or changed course to avoid the ice field, if Phillips and Bride had been more active in getting ice warnings up to the bridge, if there was just one more lookout in the nest that night then maybe the Titanic would never have struck the iceberg, or if she did, she might not have sunk, or taken long enough to sink that a rescue ship could have arrived in time. But remember that the actions of the ship's crew and officers were only reflecting the prevailing attitude on the North Atlantic at the time. I strongly believe that if any mistakes were made onboard the Titanic that night, they could very well have been made by any other crew on any other ship. It's easy to look back on the Titanic with 100+ years of hindsight and say "Smith should have done this, Bride should have done that." But taking into consideration the attitudes and beliefs at the time, it's understandable why things turned out the way they did.

And yet Marconi was also providing shipboard installations primarily to make money off of passenger traffic. This created a fundamental tension in what the Marconi operators likely saw as their real job.

IMO the issue was not one of confusion with the command structure (which was well understood by all) or prioritising incoming wireless messages, for which there was a protocol (with navigation related ones taking priority over private messages), but the difference in perception of wireless messages between the operators and the ship's Captain/Officers. In 1912 shipboard wireless telegraphy was still bit of a novelty and despite incedents such as the Binns/Republic one, its importance was not yet fully appreciated by all concerned. People like Captain Smith and to some extent even his Officers would have risen in the ranks without any experience of this technology till the start of the 20th century and so better versed with other forms of communication. Even after the Marconi Company was established and use of wireless telegraphy became relatively common, the service would have remaind something of a novelty in the senior officers' minds and its importance might not have been prioritised in their pre-trained minds.

On the other hand, most wireless operators like Phillips and Bride were young, learned about the new technology whilst in their late teens and trained specifically for its use. Many of them might not have had the "natural born sailor" turn of mind and added to that was the fact that they were empoyees of the Marconi Company rather than the shipping line. But once on board a ship, they would have come under the Captain's overall command and the use of their equipment would have been according to the protocol. It is possible that in 1912 this relationship was still not fully grounded and depite existence of a clear protocol, there could have been differences in the manner by which things like ice related messages were perceived. Those perceptive differences might have been the reason why Captain Smith stopped short of issuing specific orders to his wireless ops that all ice related messages relevant to the Titanic's route should be sent to the bridge; it may also have been one of the reasons why Phillips and Bride did not do so off their own back.

I think the fact wireless was a novelty in 1912 is often overlooked. Think of modern self-driving cars, for instance. It's a fairly new technology, and with proper research and development can be used to power our public buses, provide people with disabilities the opportunity to drive independently etc. But because the technology is so new and the extent of its capabilities not yet fully explored it's primarily owned only by the rich who flaunt it as a status symbol instead of maximising its full potential.

 

[Arun Vajpey]

I strongly believe that if any mistakes were made onboard the Titanic that night, they could very well have been made by any other crew on any other ship.

Fully agree. But at the same time, the Captain and crew another ship might not have made similar decisions and so the accident might never have happened.

I think the fact wireless was a novelty in 1912 is often overlooked.

Yes, agreed again. I don't think its full potential was as yet appreciated at the time that the Titanic had its accident.

 

[Gordon Mooneyhan]

.
Yes, agreed again. I don't think its full potential was as yet appreciated at the time that the Titanic had its accident.

I would point out that Arthur Rostron first altered the course of the Carpathia before inquiring of his wireless operator if he was positive that it was the Titanic calling CQD/SOS. I think the younger captains (Lord and Rostron) appreciated the wireless operators differently than Captain Smith did.