Passengers' baggage categorises as 'Cabin' (or 'Stateroom'), 'Baggage Room' and 'Hold' and must be labelled accordingly by the passenger prior to embarkation. An adequate supply of labels is issued with passage tickets as a matter of course.
There is a further category, 'Unaccompanied', which would be shipped on a parcel receipt and given 'special' stowage appropos its susceptability to pilferage and handling damage. Such items could be collected from the wharfinger at the berth by any person presenting a delivery note issued at the 'town office' against the parcel receipt. Depending on company procedure, u/a/c/ baggage might be brought from the berth to a baggage store at the town office for collection.
Household effects would normally be shipped as cargo on a conventional bill of lading and would outturn with other general cargo consigned to an elected agent of the consignee in the usual way. Household effects shipments are generally handled by specialist agents. On the UK side, the names Pitt & Scott and Pickfords come to mind.
'Cabin' baggage (usually suitcases and similar) would be worked from the boat train platforms to the shipside either by shoreside baggage gangs or ship's staff (depending on union rules prevailing at the port) and through the accommodation direct to the staterooms by 'chain gangs' of stewards deployed to embarkation stations.
'Baggage Room' items (such as the larger steamer trunks) would be handled between the boat train platforms and shipside by the shoreside baggage gangs and would be shipped into the baggage room spaces either by crane (plumbing the bunker hatch in the case of the Olympics) or by portable conveyers working through shell doors.
Unwieldly items shipped as 'Cabin' baggage, such as large suitcases and cabin trunks, might later be brought down from the staterooms to the baggage room by the bedroom stewards after departure.
Throughout the voyage the baggage rooms would be open to the passengers at set times of day as notified.
It is 'Hold' baggage that is traditionally labelled 'Not Wanted on the Voyage'. Generally too large a 'parcel' for special stowage, hold baggage would be stowed along with general cargo in any convenient cargo compartment. As with general cargo, it would necessarily be given a sea-fast stow (dunnaged and chocked off as necessary) unlike 'Baggage Room' items which would be racked for easy access in the baggage rooms. It would however be given 'top stow' (last in, first out) because it had to join the other baggage for customs inspection in the terminal at time of disembarkation.
Hold baggage is not intended to be accessible on passage. If inadvertently mis-labelled it could occasionally be accessed by supplicating the Chief Officer and with the exercise of some considerable labour and a lot of luck!
On the GA I see two compartments allocated to baggage, on the lower (G) deck and the orlop (E), both accessed via portals in the bunker hatch trunk and presumably worked by the deck cranes forward of the centrecastle.
The first class baggage room was accessed from inside the accommodation via a staircase from F deck. The second class baggage room seems to have been accessed via a further staircase between the post office on G deck and the mailroom and thence through a portal in the centreline bulkhead - a compromise on security I would have thought.
I am surprised that vessels of this size did not carry Baggage Masters rated as such. The duties of baggage masters include the searching of embarkation boat trains for mislaid items and the attending of customs inspections at disembarkation to log any claims for items allegedly damaged in transit. I discern only one Baggage Steward on the Articles, an E.Bessant, and can only assume that other stewards were also deployed to baggage room duty as required.
Noel
