Over the last few weeks, newspapers and television programmes have been full of stories about the Titanic, the ill-fated ocean liner that sank with the loss of over 1,500 lives on that April night one hundred years ago. Quite rightly, most articles have focused on the tragic loss of human life but there is another story too, one that I doubt is taught in British schools any more.
By the beginning of the 20th Century, at the height of Empire, the British shipbuilding industry was the largest in the world with companies such as Swan Hunter in Sunderland, Cammell Laird in Birkenhead and Harland and Wolff in both Glasgow and Belfast supplying commercial shipping to the four corners of the Earth. In the early 1900s it was estimated that at any given time one half of the ships sailing the world’s oceans were built in British shipyards. Britain was an economic powerhouse and due to the Industrial Revolution it had become “the world’s workshop” to quote19th century Prime Minister Disraeli. One quarter of the world’s surface was a part of the British Empire and English was the most important and widely spoken language on Earth.
At the time of her launch the Titanic was the largest ship in the world weighing just over 46,000 tons. She seemed to represent all that was good and great about Britain and her Empire and was the last word in luxury. She was big news and wealthy aristocrats and businessmen from all over the world clamoured for first class tickets for her maiden voyage.
On April 10th, 1912 the Titanic set sail to the cheering of the crowds and the playing of brass bands amidst a riot of colourful streamers and bunting. She was the pride of the White Star Line, she was deemed unsinkable and so well was she constructed that the number of lifeboats was deemed almost irrelevant. If the ship was unsinkable why would lifeboats be necessary anyway?
Tragically, as has often been the case in the history of man, nature has a way of reminding him that he is not, in fact, all-powerful and so it was that on the night of April 14th/15th the mighty Titanic struck an iceberg causing fatal tears in her hull. A few hours later she sank into the icy depths. Her loss was both terrible in terms of the human cost and a terrible blow to the pride and morale of the nation. In many ways, coming as it did at the height of Empire, the sinking of the Titanic was symbolic signalling as it did the decline of Great Britain.
For sure, the British shipbuilding industry continued to thrive and prosper, just about surviving the terrible economic losses of World War 1 which broke out two years later but by the time of the Great Depression of the late 1920s and early 1930s the industry was a mere shadow of itself and in no shape to compete meaningfully with the more dynamic shipyards of the USA, Germany and Japan. Since then it has been a case of one closure after another so that now few British shipyards remain.
One thing is for certain though, for as long as passenger ships sail the oceans none will forget the story of the Titanic and that tragic April night.
Common Sense 