Odd shaped E deck cabins

[Matthew Dobeck]

Hello! I am brand new here so please excuse my ignorance or if this topic has already been discussed.

I love the deck plans posted here! One thing that intrigues me are the various E deck cabin that have the narrow area that pokes out to the outer wall of the ship, I am assuming to allow for a porthole.

Cabins like E73 & E71 have a retangular area while cabins like E66 and E64 have a more diagonal or conic area.

Are there any photos of these cabins, esp showing that area or does anyone know just how narrow that was??

Thanks!

 

[Lester Mitcham]

Hi Matthew,

The style of room that you ask about was common in both 1st and 2nd Class. Quoting from the Shipbuilder: It will be seen from the plans that the staterooms on B, C, D and E decks are arranged on the tandem principle, whereby [as you correctly assumed] the inner tier of cabins receive natural light from windows in the side of the ship.

On C, D and E-decks the narrow area seems to be narrower close to the side ship. I am guessing a width of 2.5 to 3 feet, but hopefully others may be able to give more exact measurements.

Attached is a section of the arrangement for the forward end of C-deck. As it is from the Shipbuilder it is of the Olympic, not the Titanic. The main difference is that on the Titanic the bathrooms could in each case be accessed directly from two rooms. Thus C-9 and C-15, etc.

I hope this helps,
Lester

 

[Daniel Klistorner]

Matthew,

Below is a photo of what E71 looked like. I don't know of any photos that look directly down this corridor to the porthole. You can see where the passage is in the left hand side of the photo.

This corridor that lead to a 15in. porthole on E deck would have been about 3ft. wide. Perhaps a little less, a little under 90cm wide. This particular corridor in cabins such as E71 and E73 was straight. In other cabins (such as the plan Lester posted above) the corridor was about 3ft. wide near the porthole, and widened to about 4ft. at the end of it near the cabin.

Daniel.

 

[Brian Hawley]

This design was called a Bibby Cabin and first introduced I believe in the 1860s or 1870s by the Bibby Line. In the continual effort to make more profit from these massively expensive ships Bibby cabins were a way to charge more as you could now call this an outside cabin. White Star used them as you can see in large numbers and quite effectively. Cunard chose another route, but that's not to say Cunarders did not have Bibby cabins, there were common. Onboard the Aquitania her cabins just under the prom deck had small windows in a raised platform for deck chairs. John Maxtone Graham has photos of this in Crossing and Cruising, which I will be glad to post if you like.


Brian

 

[Matthew Dobeck]

Yes please, I would love to see that Brian!

Thanks for posting that photo Daniel, now I am even more intrigued!!