Crew of the Titanic

The crew of the RMS Titanic were part of the many people who sailed on the ship's first and only journey. This trip began in Southampton, England, and was headed to New York City in the United States. The Titanic was one of the largest and most advanced ships of its time, operated by the White Star Line as part of their Olympic-class ocean liners.

During the voyage, the ship struck an iceberg and sank. Sadly, this led to the loss of many lives, including some crew members. The story of the Titanic and its crew reminds us of the dangers of sea travel and the importance of safety.

Crew

See also: Lifeboats of the Titanic

This is a list of known crew members who were on the first trip of the RMS Titanic.

The list includes the nine-member Guarantee Group and the eight members of the ship's band. They were given passenger rooms and treated as both passengers and crew. They are also included in the list of passengers on board RMS Titanic.

Crew members are shown with colors to show whether they were saved or did not survive.
  The crew member did not survive
  The crew member survived

Survivors are listed with the lifeboat from which they were known to be rescued by the RMS Carpathia, on 15 April 1912.

Victims whose remains were found after the sinking are listed with a note next to the body number, showing which ship recovered the body:

• MB – CS Mackay-Bennett (bodies 1–306)
• M – CS Minia (bodies 307–323)
• MM – CGS Montmagny (bodies 326–329)
• A – SS Algerine (body 330)
• O – RMS Oceanic (bodies 331–333)
• I – SS Ilford (body 334)
• OT – SS Ottawa (body 335)

Numbers 324 and 325 were not used, and the six bodies buried at sea by the Carpathia also were not numbered. Some recovered bodies could not be identified, so not all numbers match a person.

After recovery, the bodies of 209 identified and unidentified victims of the sinking were brought to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Of these, 121 were buried in the non-denominational Fairview Lawn Cemetery, 59 were sent back to their homes, 19 were buried in the Roman Catholic Mount Olivet Cemetery, and 10 were taken to the Jewish Baron de Hirsch Cemetery. The bodies of the remaining victims were either given to family members or buried at sea.

The "Hometown" field may seem wrong. Many crew members gave secondary or temporary addresses in Southampton when signing the crew list, and some may have only recently moved there. For example, Chief Engineer Joseph Bell and Chief Steward Andrew Latimer lived with their families in the Liverpool area. Dr. Alan Scarth, in his book Titanic and Liverpool, identifies 115 crew members with close ties to the city, of whom only 28 survived.

Officers

Along with the captain, who was in charge of the ship, Titanic had seven officers. Three of these were senior officers who took four-hour watches with eight hours off. The other four were junior officers who took four-hour watches with four hours off, plus two-hour watches on alternating days. Along with one senior officer who was the Officer of the Watch on the bridge, there would be two junior officers on watch doing different jobs.

Deck

The Titanic had:

• One able officer, also called a bosun or boatswain, and one boatswain's mate, who were experienced sailors managing the deck lines, deck cranes, winches, lifeboat davits, and so on on the deck. Only the boatswain's mate survived.
• Two medical doctors, one senior and one junior, called Surgeon and Assistant Surgeon. They were responsible for treating injuries and illnesses on board for passengers and crew and had access to the ship's hospital and store of medicines. Neither medical officer survived.
• 29 able seamen, who had extra training and usually had more experience than other crew members. They did the daily work of the ship. They were also trained to use the lifeboat davits and row the lifeboats. Each able seaman was assigned to a lifeboat and would take charge if no officer was present. About eight of these men were lost when they went below decks to open the E Deck gate and were never seen again. Since almost all the able seamen had left in the first lifeboats launched, the lifeboats launched later had few trained seamen to use. As a result, some stokers and even victualling stewards (some of whom had no experience with lifeboats) were ordered to launch and row the boats. In one case, a passenger with yachting experience (Arthur Peuchen) was asked to help row a lifeboat. Nineteen of these survived.
• Two Masters-at-Arms, who, along with the First Officer, kept the keys to the only guns on board. One survived, one was lost.
• Seven quartermasters; highly trained sailors who worked on and around the bridge to steer the ship as helmsmen, manage signal flags, and watch on the bridge to help the duty officer with general navigation. All seven survived.
• Two window cleaners. One survived, one was lost.
• Two Carpenters/Joiners who looked after fresh water and worked with wooden parts of the ship; neither survived.
• One lamp trimmer. His job was "to mix the paint, and all that kind of thing for the ship, and to look after all the decks, trim all the lamps, and get them in proper order. That is all, I think. To put the lights in at night and take them off at daybreak." He survived.
• Six lookouts who worked two to a shift in the crow's nest; the shifts lasted only two hours because of the very cold winds the lookouts faced in the open crow's nest. Despite stories, lookouts were never supposed to have binoculars. They were supposed to see an object and not identify it. Binoculars would have made the view smaller and not helped since the iceberg was almost invisible to the human eye, with the air temperature at 28 °F (−2 °C), and a 20-mile-per-hour (32 km/h) headwind. All six lookouts survived.

Engineering

The engineers were responsible for keeping the engines, generators, and other mechanical equipment on the Titanic running. They were the highest paid members of the crew and had the skills to operate, maintain, and repair the engineering system.

On the night of 14 April, the Second Engineering Officer, John Henry Hesketh – the senior engineer on duty, and Leading Fireman Frederick Barrett were talking in No 6 Boiler room when the Titanic hit the iceberg at 11:40 pm. It damaged this part of the ship and the pair escaped through the connecting tunnel to No 5 Boiler Room, closing the bulkhead doors. Barrett later gave evidence at the Southampton Enquiry.

Most of the engineering crew stayed below decks in the engine and boiler rooms: some fought to keep the ship floating by operating the pumps in the front sections and keeping the steam up in the boiler rooms, to prevent boiler explosion when it met the water; and others kept the generators running to keep power and lights on throughout the Titanic until two minutes before the ship sank.

The RMS Titanic employed:

• 25 engineers; all were lost.
• 2 boilermakers; both were lost.
• 13 leading firemen (Stoker Foremen) and 163 firemen (Stokers). The ship had 29 boilers, 25 with six furnaces each, four with three furnaces each, for a total of 162 furnaces. Each fireman was assigned one boiler and three furnaces. Of the Titanic's six boiler rooms, each leading fireman was assigned to two of them with 10 to 15 firemen under him. Next to each boiler was a coal chute that dropped coal from the overhead coal bunkers, and a fireman with a shovel would constantly feed coal into the three furnaces. Shifts for all the firemen and their foremen were four hours on and eight hours off. The heat in the boiler rooms usually was over 120 °F (49 °C), so a four-hour shift was very hard. Most firemen worked wearing only their undershirts and shorts. Of the firemen, only three leading firemen and about 45 other firemen survived. Some of the firemen who survived got into the lifeboats dressed only in their undershirts and shorts in 28 °F (−2 °C) weather.
• 73 trimmers, or coal trimmers, on the Titanic. Of the engineering crew, the trimmers were paid the least and had probably the hardest job. The trimmers worked inside the coal bunkers on top of and between the boilers. The trimmers used shovels and wheelbarrows to move coal around the bunker to keep the coal level, and to shovel the coal down the coal chute to the firemen below to shovel it into the furnaces. If too much coal built up on one side of a coal bunker, the ship would actually tilt to that side. All the heat from the boilers rose into the coal bunkers, and inside, the bunkers were dimly lit, full of coal dust, and very hot from the boilers. About 20 of them survived.
• 33 greasers. These men worked in the turbine and reciprocating engine rooms with the engineers and they were responsible for keeping and supplying oil and lubricants for all the mechanical equipment. Only four of them survived.
• Eight electricians; six (one Chief, one senior, and four Assistants) as part of the crew company and an additional two (one senior, one Apprentice) in the Guarantee Group. All eight were lost.
• Six mess hall stewards. These men worked in the crew's kitchen to cook and serve food for the crew: four served the engineering crew; two served the firemen. Only one steward from engineering survived.

Victualling

There were 431 men and women assigned to the Victualling Department on the Titanic. The Victualling Department provided all the services for the people on the ship; food, cleaning, laundry, room service, etc.:

• The Chief Purser and Assistant Purser, who supervised all of the Victualling Department and were the direct link between passengers and the ship's officers; neither survived.
• 322 stewards, who did over 57 different jobs in each class's dining room, public rooms, cabins and recreation areas. About 60 stewards survived. The most important of the stewards' jobs were:
  • Bath Stewards, responsible for keeping supplies in the shared bathrooms used by everyone except a few First Class Passengers.
  • Bedroom Stewards, assigned to each class. The First Class Bedroom stewards not only cleaned the rooms and made beds, they were also available to serve food in the rooms or help passengers get dressed. Most stewards were paid little and depended on tips for their income. Each First Class Bedroom Steward was responsible for three to five rooms, Second Class Stewards for up to 10 rooms, and Third Class Stewards for as many as 25.
  • Bellboys (known today as bellhops or porters), teenage boys as young as 14, who helped carry passengers' luggage when needed.
  • "Boots" (shoe shiners), stewards responsible for cleaning and shining the passengers' boots and shoes.
  • Glory-Hole Stewards, whose job was to clean and maintain the crew areas (called Glory Holes, from a cupboard where useful but various items are kept).
  • Linen Stewards, responsible for washing and keeping all the linen on board (bed sheets, bathroom towels, table linen, etc.).
• 62 Galley and kitchen staff, including chefs, cooks, bakers, butchers, and scullions who worked in the kitchens of each class to cook the many meals for the passengers. Scullions, called dishwashers today, were responsible for washing and drying the dishes. About 13 survived.
• 20 stewardesses; all but two survived. The stewardesses' duties were similar to the male stewards', although they usually served only women passengers.
  • 2 of the stewardesses were turkish bath attendants.
• 1 matron, who looked after third-class women and children and reported any signs of illness to the doctors; she did not survive.
• 13 Storekeepers, only two of whom survived.
• 4 turkish bath attendants; none of them survived.
• 4 Clerks, employed in the Purser's Office to handle passengers' questions and requests (including keeping valuables safe).
• 2 wireless operators, who were actually employed by the Marconi International Marine Communication Company, were assigned to the Victualling Department, probably because at the time radio communication was seen mainly as a service rather than an important part of the ship's operation. Only one survived.
• There were also three barbers on the Titanic as part of the vendor group; August H. Weikman and Arthur White worked in First Class and Herbert Klein in Second Class. None of them were employed by the White Star Line since all three were self-employed and worked mostly for cash tips. The White Star Line only provided their meals and living areas. Of this group only Weikman survived.

Restaurant

The À La Carte Restaurant was located on B Deck, just below the fourth funnel. It was a private restaurant run by A. P. Luigi Gatti, an Italian businessman who owned two other restaurants in London, as well as the À La Carte Restaurant on the RMS Olympic. The restaurant was open from 8:00 am to 11:00 pm and was open only to First Class passengers. The staff were not paid by the White Star Line, but by Mr. Gatti himself, who was on the Titanic for its first trip. The restaurant was self-sufficient with its own cooks, waiters, cleanup crew, and other staff. Most of the employees were French or Italian nationals.

Of the entire staff of 69 people, only one male clerk and the two female cashiers survived.

Postal clerks

The Titanic's five postal clerks—two British, three American—were responsible for the supervision and processing of all incoming and outgoing mail on board the ship. On the night of the disaster, the five postal clerks were celebrating Oscar Woody's 41st birthday. After the ship hit the iceberg, Jago Smith was sent to report to Captain Smith on the mailroom's conditions, confirming that the ship was sinking. The five clerks decided to try to save the 200 registered mail bags by moving them to the upper decks, with little thought for their own safety. All five mail clerks died; only March and Woody's bodies were found.

Guarantee group

Although the nine-member guarantee group were given passenger rooms, they were also considered members of the crew. Led by the ship's designer, Thomas Andrews, the group's job was to travel with the ship on its first trip to watch for any unfinished work or find and fix any problems that might happen during the trip. The entire group died; none of their bodies were found.

Orchestra

Main article: Musicians of the Titanic

The ship's eight-member orchestra was not on the White Star Line's payroll but was hired to White Star by the Liverpool firm of C.W. & F.N. Black, which at that time hired musicians for almost all British ships. The musicians got on at Southampton and traveled in second-class.

Until the night of the sinking, the orchestra played as two separate groups: a quintet led by violinist and official bandleader Wallace Hartley, that played at tea time, after-dinner concerts, and Sunday services, among other times; and a violin, cello, and piano trio comprising Roger Bricoux, Georges Krins, and William Brailey, that played at the À La Carte Restaurant and the Café Parisien. None of the orchestra members survived.

First surviving crew members to die

Some people who survived when the Titanic sank passed away within five years after. Their stories are recorded in more detail on Encyclopedia Titanica.

Last surviving crew members to die

The Titanic sank many years ago, and most of the people who worked on it have passed away since then. Here are the last few crew members who died:

• William Moore – He was the oldest crew member when the Titanic set sail. He died in 1982.
• Arthur Hoyle – He worked in the stokehold. He died in 1986.
• David Syman – He was a stoker. He died in 1996.
• Frederick Barter – He was a able seaman. He died in 2001.
• Walter Samuel Hemming – He was a baker. He died in 2003.
• Edmund Cooper – He worked as a fireman. He died in 2004.
• Joseph Scarrott – He was a stoker and fireman. He died in 2005.
• Bertie Dickins – He worked as a scullion. He died in 2008.

These crew members were some of the last links to the story of the Titanic. Their lives helped keep the memory of the ship alive.