why isn't the board of trade blamed tha much or the lifeboats in popular culture?

[Aurélien WOLFF]

I noticed in titanic movies, ismay would be the one blamed for the lack of lifeboat while not taking the board of trade in account or that the davits were designated to cope in case the laws were changed by adding more lifeboat. I wonder why the board of trade part isn't mentionned as much there.

 

[Richard C Elliott]

... ismay would be the one blamed for the lack of lifeboat while not taking the board of trade in account ...

I think the main reason is simply that most people get much more satisfaction from blaming individual 'villains' rather than faceless corporate bodies.

The Board of Trade thinking on the matter was, I suspect, a good deal more complicated than most accounts suggest. I have been doing some background reading of old parliamentary questions and debates relating to the BoT regulations and I get the impression that they had been deliberately allowing the lifeboat requirements to lapse in order to gain more support for improved compartmentalisation. Their political calculation was that they wouldn't get simultaneous parliamentary support for both and I suspect, given the domination of the House of Commons by business interest in that era, that they were probably correct.

 

[derek byrne]

The Marine Safety Act's Life-Saving Appliances Committee first met on 19th November 1888 and was top-heavy with ship-owners and ship-builders and its Chairman was Thomas Henry Ismay, father of the better known J. Bruce Ismay. The few members who spoke for the sailors wanted lifeboats for all but the ship owners/builders judged that policy to be "totally impracticable and harmful to safety at sea" (Sir Francis Dunlop, ship owner and friend of Ismay). As mentioned in the previous reply to the question, the builders felt that perfecting the watertight compartments method would make the use of lifeboats unnecessary as the ship itself would be its own lifeboat. This and more about lifeboats is covered in Chapter 2 of the book 'Dundee Man Lost at Sea - the links between RMS Titanic and the city of Dundee.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

The few members who spoke for the sailors wanted lifeboats for all but the ship owners/builders judged that policy to be "totally impracticable and harmful to safety at sea"

They may not have been entirely wrong. Every sailor knows that the safest possible course is to remain with the ship for as long as possible. Taking to the boats with no possible rescue in sight was the absolute last resort and came with the risk of being lost at sea. This was what happened to the crew of the Mary Celeste.

There were also topweight issues to consider as well as having the upper works so cluttered that the extra boats would get in the way.

 

[Aurélien WOLFF]

The context of the time does also explain why the low number, tho I'm not sure if it's fair to entirely blame ismay when the ship carried more than what was considered at first.

 

[Richard C Elliott]

Here is an excerpt from one of the parliamentary exchanges I mentioned above to give you a flavour of the contemporary political discussions. This is from the Hansard record for 26th February 1895.

*SIR J. LENG
(Dundee)

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether, in view of the fact that oceangoing steamers now frequently carry upwards of 1,000 souls on board as passengers, crew, and attendants, he will consider the propriety of the Board obtaining statutory powers to require compliance with the recommendations of the Bulk-heads Committee, 1891, in, the building of all such vessels in the United Kingdom, so as to make them practically unsinkable?

THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE
(Mr. BRYCE, Aberdeen, S.)

The Statutory Committee on Life-saving Appliances advised that a reduction in the amount of such appliances should be allowed in respect of vessels which were divided into efficient watertight compartments. In consequence of the Report of this Statutory Committee the Bulk heads Committee of 1891 were appointed to advise as to what were efficient watertight compartments, and upon their valuable Report the Board of Trade have acted in granting the reduction of life-saving appliances suggested by the Statutory Committee. Neither that Committee, however, nor the Bulkheads Committee recommended—as indeed they had no power to recommend—that the provision of such compartments should be made compulsory. The question of making such provision compulsory is a very serious one, and I apprehend that much resistance would be offered to a legislative proposal to that effect.

*SIR E. HARLAND
(Belfast, N.)

asked whether it was not a fact that a great many of the recently built oceangoing steamers had availed themselves voluntarily and to the full of the recommendation of the Bulkhead Committee?

MR. BRYCE

A good many have certainly done so. I should hardly say what proportion, but a good many, I know, have done so.

Sir E. Harland is, of course, the owner of Harland & Wolff. Many shipbuilders and shipowners were also Members of Parliament.

Note also that the term "practically unsinkable" is used by Sir John Leng in connection with watertight compartmentalisation 17 years before the Titanic sinking. It wasn't, as popularly believed, something invented in relation to the Olympic class.

 

[Gordon Mooneyhan]

IIRC, the Board of Trade conducted the first hearing in the UK. Would they (really) blame themselves? And then, once the precedence is set, it pretty much ensures their immunity.