By ferrying passengers between England and the 'New Land', America, the British line, Cunard, was virtually unchallenger and had most of the market. The only other big companies at the time were Brunell's fast, but un-reliable liners, and the famous White Star Line. Foundered in 1850, the White Star Line gained most of it's profits by transporting immigrants between England and the gold-fields of Australia. Purchased in 1867 by Thomas Henry Ismay, he developped the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company in an attempt to get a Trans-Atlantic service out of the White Star Line. Only 4 years later, the line had 6 steam ships to their name and White Star seemed to have glazed over Cunard as the premiere line on England. Even the wreck of their ship the Atlantic couldn't stop them.
In 1889, White Star launched two new liners, the Teutonic and Majestic (Majestic would later be the name of a later ship capured in war and given to the line). Apart from luxury, these ships had another improvement. They were built without sails. Now the decks were clear of these menaces, and First Class, though sub par compared to the liners only a decade later, was well above the standards of the Cunard line's.
Thomas Ismay died in 1899, and now the company was in trouble. However, an American financer John Pierpont Morgan was in the process of buying out all of White Star and Cunard's smaller compeditors. He wanted to eventually own the two large lines, and with White Star alone with no managing director, he figured it would be easy, and it was. He bourght out the company and put Ismay's oldest son in charge, Joseph Bruce Ismay. Cunard however would not be bought out, and remained a product of Britain.
Now with money behind them, Morgan told Ismay, and Lord Pirrie, the managing director of Harland and Wolff Shipbuiling to 'spare no expence in building these great liners'.
On a warm summer evening in 1907, a black mercedes pulled up infront of the London house owned by Lord and Lady Pirrie. When the chauffer opene the door, the tall Ismay stepped out, and offering his hand to his wife Florence, walked into the house. While lingering over after dinner cigars, the two men discussed a very grave issue, the Cunard line. Their new liner Lusitania was about to begin er maiden voyage with much publicity. If her, and her sister ship Mauritania were to win the Blue Ribbon of the Atlantic, White Star would be ruined. It was then that the men created an amazing plan. Two ships, with a third to follow, nearly 100 feel longer and 10,000 tonnes heavier than their Cunard rivals were to be built. The ships would be so luxurious that they would rival and beat their on shore compeditors. They hired Pirrie's nephew Thomas Andrews to design the ships. Three names were chosen; Olympic, Titanic and Gigantic for the three ships, and Andrews oversaw the building of the first ship, Olympic from every angle. Not a rivit was out of place. Not even 40, Andrews had long been facinated with his uncle's ship building works, and now, he was designing the worlds most splendid ships, described by Ismay as "the largest moving object ever created by the hand of man." Nearly 900 feet long, and weighing 45,000 tonnes, the Olympic was to set the standard for ship building for years to come, only for it to be surpassed by her two equally as big sisters. And so the legend began... |
