TITANIC’S APPRENTICES

Sad Saga of The Guarantee Group

When the TITANIC left on her maiden voyage, nine individuals representing the shipbuilding firm that had constructed her were onboard. The leader of that team was a graduate apprentice. So was another member of the group. Four of the remaining seven were apprentices who were still in their time. Collectively, they are known as The Guarantee Group. None survived. This is their story. RMS TITANIC was designed and built by the shipbuilding firm of Harland & Wolff (H&W) of Belfast, Northern Ireland. That company dates back to 1861 and had roughly 15,000 employees in 1912, when what was billed as the world’s largest, most luxurious…and unsinkable…passenger liner was completed. Over 3,000 of those shipbuilders worked on TITANIC, including a large number of apprentices. Harland & Wolff, like most shipyards, utilized an informal ‘over the shoulder’ system of apprenticeship in the early 20th century. Young boys, mostly the sons of seasoned shipbuilders in Belfast, ‘served their time’ and became some of the firm’s best craftsmen and waterfront supervisors. A few H&W graduate apprentices took it upon themselves to further advance their training and moved even higher in the company’s management. By 1912, the most successful of them was Thomas Andrews, Jr.

2

Thomas Andrews was one of the principal architects of RMS TITANIC and head of The Guarantee Group. He was born in 1873. At age 16 he entered Harland & Wolff’s apprentice program. Working in the shipyard by day and taking evening classes in mechanics and naval architecture by night, he learned quickly and rose through the ranks. By 1907, at age 34, he had become the managing director of the design department and was deeply involved in the creation of TITANIC and her two sister ships. Thomas Andrews had previously made it a point to sail with a team of mechanics on the maiden voyages of previous vessels built by Harland & Wolff to observe their operation and to recommend improvements to future ships.

Other members of his teams on such trips mostly dealt with problems that arose during new vessels’ initial operations. As leader of The Guarantee Group for TITANIC, Andrews was an active and exacting inspector. He reportedly carried a notebook with him everywhere he went and frequently consulted the ship’s plans. The TITANIC departed Belfast, bound for Southampton, England in early April, 1912. It was the first time she was operated on her own power. Subjected to a brief, eight-hour period of testing while enroute to her designated home port, she performed without incident, Andrews wrote what proved to be his last letter to his wife. In it he expressed satisfaction with the ship: "The Titanic is now about complete and will, I think, do the old Firm credit tomorrow when we sail". After arriving in Southampton, presumably a number of shipbuilders that had been onboard for the trial run returned to Belfast. Those selected to stay onboard TITANIC and make her maiden voyage included a curious and small…by today’s standards…group of shipbuilders that included four apprentices. Using such trips as a sort of reward was a Harland & Wolff tradition, open to all who had proven their capabilities. So, including several apprentices in The Guarantee Group was not unusual in 1912. That kind of unique opportunity no doubt reflected Thomas Andrews’ appreciation for what he had learned as an apprentice, and his desire to contribute to the knowledge of others showing strong promise in their apprenticeships. He knew that there was no substitute for witnessing one’s creations perform at sea and learning from their shortcomings.

3

The Guarantee Group also consisted of four more senior individuals besides Andrews. They included Harland & Wolff’s chief draughtsman, the assistant manager of the firm’s electrical department, a graduate apprentice/senior ship fitter and a machinery expert.

Chief Draughtsman Roderick Chisholm, 40, was a second generation and seasoned shipbuilder from Scotland, where he had worked at another H&W shipyard before transferring to Belfast. He had worked closely with Andrews on the design of TITANIC, so his inclusion on the vessel’s maiden voyage probably was not only reward for Chisholm’s contributions to her design, but also to allow Andrews and others to take advantage of his extensive knowledge of the vessel’s details.

William Parr, 29, joined Harland & Wolff in 1910, just in time to become an assistant manager in the electrical department for TITANIC and her sister ship. He supervised the installation of electrical equipment on both ships. Given the relative newness of shipboard electrical installations and their extensive use in TITANIC, his selection no doubt considerably augmented Andrews’ team.

Anthony Frost, had joined Harland and Wolff as a machine-boy in 1888 at the age of fourteen. Shipbuilding was a family career and his father was already working at the yard as a foreman when he got there. By the time TITANIC began construction, the older Frost had retired. Anthony Frost, at age 38, assumed his dad’s foreman’s position for the first time, supervising the installation of machinery onboard the liner.

Robert Knight was a graduate apprentice and a leading ship fitter at H&W. Having worked there for 21 years, he was valued as a hard-working and skilled employee. Robert Knight had been selected for promotion, once the ship’s maiden voyage was completed. Born into a large family, Frank Parkes began work at Harland & Wolff at age 16. By age 21, he was recognized as a top apprentice plumber. He had reached age 25 when his exemplary work had singled him out as a candidate to go on TITANIC’s maiden voyage. Little is known of William Campbell, beyond his employment as a young apprentice joiner at Harland & Wolff. It's apparent that inclusion in The Guarantee Group was not limited to just the older, experienced employees at the Belfast shipbuilding firm.

Alfred Cunningham was an apprentice ship fitter. He was 21 when he sailed on the TITANIC’s fateful voyage. After the sinking, he was initially reported to have survived the Titanic disaster by local newspapers; due to the fact that there was another A. Cunningham, (a steward) on board the ship who had been rescued. Several days later, his family learned the horrible truth.

4

Only 18 years old when he lost his life, Ennis Watson was working for Harland & Wolff as an apprentice electrician. He’d recently studied and received several academic awards at the Belfast Municipal Technical Institute. In addition to the apprentice-dominated guarantee group of nine, there was another H&W graduate apprentice onboard TITANIC when she sailed. Thirty year-old Tommy Millar had served an apprenticeship with Harland & Wolff and had then worked for them for another eight years, including during the TITANIC’s construction. Disturbed by sectarian clashes in Belfast and the death of his wife, he dreamed of a new life in America for himself and his two young sons. So Millar got a job as a member of TITANIC’s crew, apparently planning to leave the ship in America and send for his boys. He never got there… Thomas Millar is in the right-center of this photograph, with mustache and wearing a sailor’s uniform. Anthony Frost is to his immediate right. Other members of The Guarantee Group are also in the picture.

On Wednesday, April 10, 1912, the mighty vessel left Southampton, nearly filled to capacity. No one, not even her designers that were onboard, seemed to be bothered by the fact that the ship’s lifeboats could not accommodate all who were onboard that day. She was, after all, unsinkable… Andrews, Chisholm and Parr had been provided with cabins in first class. The others in The Guarantee Group were placed in second class, which onboard the TITANIC were better than found on most passenger ships, and quite likely far more plush than their own homes

Once underway, Thomas Andrews and his associates were kept busy, monitoring the TITANIC’s performance and helping the crew resolve any minor problems…the kind that always seem to come up, whenever a new ship is first put through her paces at sea for days at a time. All went well…until just before midnight on Sunday, April 14th.

5

By that time, Thomas Andrews had already retired to his cabin; probably studying his notes and thinking about changes that might be suggested for the TITANIC’s sister ship, still under construction in Belfast. Shortly after the vessel hit the infamous iceberg, Captain Edward Smith, the vessel’s commanding officer, had Andrews summoned to help determine the damage. They discussed the situation shortly after midnight, following a visual inspection of the damaged compartments section of the ship made by Andrews.

Thomas Andrews saw that the first five of the ship's watertight compartments were rapidly flooding. He knew that if more than four of the ship's compartments flooded, it would inevitably sink. Andrews relayed this somber conclusion to Captain Smith, stating that it was a 'mathematical certainty'. He added that, in his opinion, the vessel had only about an hour, or two at the most, before it would sink.

According to statements made by surviving passeners and crew members, when the evacuation of the TITANIC began, Andrews helped search staterooms, telling passengers to put on their lifebelts and go up on deck. Andrews was later seen throwing deck chairs into the ocean for passengers to use as flotation devices. John Stewart, a surviving ship’s steward, reported that he last saw Thomas Andrews just standing in the first–class smoking room, making no effort to leave the ship. Others, albeit undocumented, said that as the ship went under at 2:20 AM on April 15, 1912, he was standing on the bridge, next to Captain Smith. Anthony Frost was last seen heading down to the engine room to help the ship’s engineers keep the pumps working. According to other surviving crew members who escaped from the machinery spaces before they flooded, William Parr was working diligently in the engine room, keeping the lights running until the ship’s final moments. No doubt, the other shipbuilders onboard were also doing what they could to possibly help save the doomed ship. It is reasonable to surmise that the ship fitters were amongst those trying frantically to shore up bulkheads. Of course, their efforts were all for naught. Only 710 people survived, out of the 2,224 souls that were on board the TITANIC. None of The Guarantee Group survived. A large number of bodies were recovered from the frigid waters, but the nine shipbuilders’ remains were never found, leaving behind a large group of grieving wives, children, parents, siblings and others in Belfast. Following the disaster, both American and British officials held inquiries. Most of the blame went to Captain Smith, who had failed to take proper heed of ice warnings and had allowed his vessel to steam into a dangerous area at too high a speed. The investigations also revealed why the TITANIC had gone to sea without enough lifeboats to accommodate all those on board.

6

Before the investigations began, the media jumped to the conclusion that the lack of enough lifeboats was the shiupbuilder’s fault. Harland & Wolff had Thomas Andrews predecessor, Alexander Carlisle, who had retired in 1910, testify at the hearing held in England. While serving as the TITANIC’s chief designer, he had recommended forty-eight lifeboats. Documentation was produced by H&W to prove that it was the vessel’s owners, the White Star Line, who had insisted on the minimum number allowable by British Board of Trade regulation. The reason given was to maximize exterior deck space for passenger enjoyment. The regulations in effect when TITANIC was created required sixteen lifeboats for an ocean-going passenger vessel of over 10,000 tons. But that quantity was grossly insufficent to accomodate the passengers and crew of the 46,000 ton TITANIC in the size of lifeboats that were standard, by regulation in Britain in the early 20th century. The final design specified twenty lifeboats and four collapsible craft at the owners’ insistance, which they smugly noted was actually in excess of what was required. The two inquiries reached similar and obvious conclusions; i.e., the regulations regarding the number and capacity of lifeboats that TITANIC were inadequate. That regulatory deficiency was corrected, along with the initiation of a number of other safety-related regulatory changes to the way ships were designed and operated. But by then it was far too late; the so-called lifeboat ‘loophole’ had already helped cause the loss of 1,414 lives. Numerous memorials were created in the years immediately following the tragedy. This one is in Belfast. On it are inscribed the names of The Guarantee Group, Tommy Millar and twelve other shipmates of Millar’s who were also citizens of Belfast, and who were lost when the TITANIC sank. This inscription appears on the base of the memorial.

Erected to the imperishable memory of those gallant Belfastmen whose names are here inscribed and who

lost their lives on the 15th April 1912, by the fou ndering of the Belfast-built R.M.S. Titanic, through collis ion with an iceberg, on her maiden voyage from Southampton t o

New York.

Their devotion to duty and heroic conduct, through which the lives of many of those on board were save d, have left a record of calm fortitude and self-sacri fice

which will ever remain an inspiring example to succeeding generations.

'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.'

When the statue was dedicated, Thomas Andrews, former apprentice and accomplished shipbuilder was singled out as a prime example of the meaning of that last sentence.

7

~ Postscript ~ A little over four decades later, another ocean liner made her maiden voyage. In the summer of 1952, the SS UNITED STATES first crossed the Atlantic…and in record-breaking time. On board to enjoy that historic event were a number of NNS personnel. That ‘guarantee group’, much larger in size than TITANIC’s Guarantee Group, included numerous equipment suppliers’ representatives as well to ensure everything went according to plan. The Newport News delegation was consisted mostly of graduate apprentices. Without a doubt, Thomas Andrews would have approved.

Bill Lee April 15, 2012