Robin Gardiner's History of the White Star Line

[George Behe]

Hi, Mark!

I suspect that Gardiner got the Smith quote from my website. Although I don't have the specific source of the quote right here at my fingertips, I can at least assure everyone that the quote is authentic.

All my best,

George

 

[Michael H. Standart]

Mark; Glad you finally have your order coming. About that article you submitted, was it accepted? I would look forward to reading it.

Michael T.It would seem the book industry has a problem getting anything published on time these days. That's why I dislike pre-ordering ahead of time. I've been peeking into the THS website from time to time and from the looks of it, there have been a lot of problems with the outfit THS is dealing with. If I learn anything more, I'll pass it on.

Hope to see you at the next gathering. As you might expect, my pony tail is a little longer.

Cordially,
Michael H. Standart

 

[Mark Chirnside]

Mike,

<FONT COLOR="119911">About that article you submitted, was it accepted? I would look forward to reading it.

They didn't want it because it had been on the TRMA webpage and only accept 'exclusives'. Pity because as far as I know quite a bit of the information was unpublished.

Best regards,

Mark.

 

[Mark Chirnside]

Some of those interesting quotes I promised; I wish I had time for more. Colour coded for <FONT COLOR="ff0000">hate it or laugh my head off, <FONT COLOR="119911">okay and not bad.

Quote:

<FONT COLOR="ff0000">'New evidence suggests that the iceberg that caused the sinking of the Titanic could have been a sailing ship, or an auxiliary streamer, or steamer draped in wet canvas...' ROTFOL!​

​

Quote:

'Thanks to a very efficient effort by suceeding owners of the White Star Company to obliterate all trace of the firm's activities, precious little of the line's archive remains in existence...'​

​

Best regards,

Mark.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

Hi Mark. What can I say? THS's loss, TRMA's gain. I think I've seen it BTW.

On Gardiner's quotes.

Agreed on number one. That one is so outrageous as to be hysterical.

On number two, why would there be any records of any sort of questionable activity at all?

This isn't the sort of thing that any parties would want to leave evidence of.

Cordially,
Michael H. Standart

 

[Mark Chirnside]

Mike,

Gardiner's theories make little sense. Many people agree - or is it just *everyone*?

It was the vent article BTW, but much had been unpublished. THS explained their policy:

Quote:

'The THS has had an exclusive policy for some time and prides itself on
> original research, states such in the Commutator and is responsible for
> saving and uncovering much information readily available now. (Unfortunately
> it often doesn&sup1;t get the credit.) The Commutator is an expensive journal to
> produce, people save them because of their quality and permanence and it is a
> reason people like to have their work published in it. For 25 years
> the THS was the only Å’Titanic Society.&sup1; Over time, it proved itself building
> a reputation from its work. Since the wreck was found, there have been
> numerous imitators otherwise why would names and formats be similar?

> Its unfair to those who pay a membership and support the THS to see
> information given away on the internet. A lot of time, effort and money was
> invested in gathering it. Not to minimise your work or others who are
> serious; putting information on a web site is something anyone can do and if
> its free, it often is not valued. How does one distinguish good research
> from the casual individual who mainly wants visibility, is unconcerned about
> accuracy and/or simply copying others’ work? It&sup1;s something to give some
> thought to.'​

​

Best regards,

Mark.

 

[Mark Baber]

One example is his statement that Adriatic’s firemen mutinied when the ship was in Southampton in August of 1910. Well, why did they mutiny? We are never told.

You will be....soon. Look for a thread called "Mutiny on Adriatic" which will appear later today.

MAB

 

[Inger Sheil]

Kewel. Is this a sequel to the earlier 'Mutiny on the Oceanic'(and who gets cast as William Murdoch, who was aboard when it happened)??

I suspect that there might be the potential for 'seriously cheesed off on the Belgic' judging from some bits and bobs I've seen on one of her 1911-12 voyages, but that's a story for another day.

 

[Teri Lynn Milch]

Tennaro,

Thanks for your dissertation on Gardiner's latest work. Sounds rather of a negative work in nature and not much fun reading.

I'm debating whether to add this to my collection or not. What do you think?

Teri

 

[Michael Tennaro]

Hi Teri,

I'm having a hard time recommending this book. a much better history of the White Star line is Anderon's White Star, but that is out of print, and quite expensive. if you want a history of White Star based on accidents, Eaton & Haas' Falling Star is a much better book.

that being said, there is a tremendous amount of information in Gardiner's book. some of it is kind of flaky (as noted above), but a lot of it is okay.

Gardiner has also done a very good job of organizing the company's history chronologically. most chapters cover a one to two decade period of time.

finally, no-one has mentioned it yet but there is a great deal of biographical information about J. Bruce Ismay and his father Thomas. other than Oldham's Ismay Line, no-one has done as complete a job as Gardiner in telling the impact these two men had on the shipping industry in their times.

so can I give Gardiner's book a solid recommendation? no. but I it isn't so bad that I would discount it completely either. in a perfect world I would recommend the other books I noted above, but Gardiner has the advantage of being easily available and reasonably priced.

hope that helps!
best, Michael (TheManInBlack) T

 

[Teri Lynn Milch]

Michael T,

Well maybe the best thing for me to do is peruse it at the library to see if it has data that might be useful to me and go from there. If Gardiner went through the trouble of researching and organizing the company's history chronologically then the book might be worth looking into.

Thank you very much for your review!

Teri

 

[Inger Sheil]

MiB - Any indication where Gardiner got his Ismay info from? Does it look like he's had a shoofty through the Merseyside Maritime Museum's collection? Some of the board members here must have had a stickybeak at their holdings...I'm up to Liverpool soonishly to have a look at the material they have on the history of another shipping line, and was wondering if it was worth casting an eye over some of the Ismay material as well. Opinions, anyone?

 

[Michael Tennaro]

Inger,

very hard to say. Gardiner gives NO indication where he got his Ismay information from, or where he got any of his information from for that matter. so it is impossible to say if he mined the resources of the Merseyside Museum or not.

one thing he does imply in his introduction is that he did a lot of research in the newspapers of the day. but I don't think this would involve his Ismay data too much; he seems to have pulled from the papers mostly information about schedules, when White Star added new ships to its fleet, accident reports, etc.

best, Michael (TheManInBlack)T

 

[Mark Chirnside]

There are some Ismay details in Liverpool. Gardiner's book did bring back some memories of their records.

 

[Inger Sheil]

Ta for that, Mike and Mark - the Liverpool holdings would seem one of the obvious places to start looking for Ismay material, hence my assumption that that's where Gardiner did some digging.

~ Inger