Tragic faces of Titanic seen in colour for the first time - from a traumatised widow to the lookout who took his own life after being taunted for failing to spot the iceberg in time Colourised images of Titanic have featured in a new two-part Channel 4 series READ MORE: Incredible colorised images show luxury aboard the Titanic By Jonathan Mayo Published: 16:29 BST, 12 August 2024 | Updated: 17:49 BST, 12 August 2024 e-mail 15 shares 57 View comments For over a century, we’ve been gripped by the story of Titanic but it’s a story often told in black and white. Yet the pride of the White Star Line fleet was a blaze of colour with vivid green furniture, rose-coloured carpets and a hull trimmed with gleaming gold paint. Now, the monochrome photographs of what was the largest moving object on the planet when she launched on May 31, 1911, have been colourised using the latest 21st Century techniques for a new two-part Channel 4 series, Titanic In Colour, which promises to transform the way we see the doomed ship and her ill-fated passengers.
The images are a pertinent reminder of the immense human tragedy which ruined countless lives when Titanic sank on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York on 15 April, 1912, with an estimated 2,224 people on board - and only 20 lifeboats. While 1,500 people lost their lives, survivors were forever haunted by the disaster, particularly lookout Frederick Fleet, one of at least 11 survivors who took their own lives in the aftermath. Meanwhile, a haunting image shows widow Charlotte Collyer, from Surrey, clutching a White Star Line blanket, still looking shocked and grief-stricken a month after the disaster which claimed the life of her husband.
Four years later. she died from TB, leaving her daughter Marjorie an orphan. WIDOW CLUTCHES BLANKET THAT KEPT HER WARM IN THE LIFEBOAT Charlotte Collyer and her daughter Marjorie, seven, pictured in Idaho a month after the disaster which claimed the life of Mrs Collyer's husband Harvey.
Four years later, she died from TB, leaving her daughter an orphan A month after the Titanic sank, second-class passengers Charlotte Collyer and her daughter Marjorie, seven, were photographed and interviewed by an American newspaper. On Charlotte’s lap is the White Star Line blanket that kept them both warm in a lifeboat. Together with her husband Harvey, the family left Hampshire to start a new life in Idaho where they hoped the climate would help Charlotte’s tuberculous.
As the ship was going down, Charlotte, dressed in a nightgown, clung to Harvey and only got in a lifeboat after a member of the crew threw their daughter in first. Charlotte wrote to her mother: ‘How can I live without him? If they had not wrenched Madge from me, I should have stayed and gone with him.’ She also referenced the moment immortalised in the film A Night To Remember, when the band played Nearer My God To Thee as the ship went down.
'Sometimes I feel we lived too much for each other that is why I've lost him,' she said. 'But mother we shall meet him in heaven. When that band played Nearer My God to Thee I know he thought of you and me for we both loved that hymn.
' Harvey drowned with all their life savings of $5,000 in his jacket pocket and his body was never recovered. Charlotte and her daughter returned to England at the end of 1914, where she remarried. Four years after the disaster, Charlotte died of tuberculosis, after which Marjorie was brought up by her uncle.
THE LOOKOUT WHO WAS TAUNTED BY STRANGERS Frederick Fleet, 25, was the lookout on Titanic when he spotted the iceberg. He surived the disaster but was taunted by strangers and took his own life in 1965 At 11.39pm on Sunday April 14, in the Titanic’s crow’s nest, lookout Frederick Fleet, a 25-year-old former Barnardo’s boy, saw a black object high above the water.
Fleet rang the brass bell above him three times and called the ship’s bridge, yelling: ‘Iceberg dead ahead!’ The Titanic altered course but it was too late – 46,000 tonnes of steel and wood collided with half a million tonnes of ice, and the liner was punctured below the waterline multiple times. Frederick survived the disaster but, as the lookout who spotted the iceberg too late, he was an embarrassment for the White Star Line and so was forced to work for other shipping companies. At an inquiry into the tragedy Fleet claimed he would have seen the iceberg sooner if he had been issued with a pair of binoculars.
The onyl pair on board were locked in a cupboard, and a sailor called David Blair forgot to leave behind a key. When asked by a US senator how much sooner it might have been spotted, Mr Fleet replied: 'Enough to get out of the way.' Inquiries into the disaster in Britain and America never blamed Mr Fleet for the tragedy.
Maritime historians have also since suggested he did everything he could have at the time and had been a very conscientious lookout. In the 1960s, he ended up selling newspapers on the streets of Southampton, sometimes taunted by passers-by shouting: ‘Hello, Fred. Seen any icebergs lately?’ He hanged himself from his washing line in January 1965, shortly after his wife died, one of at least eleven Titanic survivors who took their own life.
His grave, with a picture of the Titanic engraved on its headstone, lies in Hollybrook Cemetery, Southampton, Hants. In 2012, tasteless pranksters desecrated his final resting place by placing a pair of binoculars underneath his headstone. YOUNG SURVIVOR WHO TRAGICALLY DIED THREE YEARS LATER Six-year-old Robert Douglas Speddon spinning a top on the first-class Promenade Deck watched by his father Frederick Jesuit theological student Frank Browne took a photo of his first-class cabin, He disembarked in Ireland, before Titanic resumed her voyage to New York This photograph was taken a few hours before the Titanic picked up passengers from Queenstown.
It shows six-year-old Robert Douglas Speddon spinning a top on the first-class Promenade Deck watched by his father Frederick. Young Robert slept through the disaster, eventually waking up in a lifeboat next to his parents. Tragically three years later Robert was knocked down and killed by a car.
The photographer was Jesuit theological student Frank Browne who was travelling from Southampton to Queenstown. He was befriended by an American couple who offered to pay his fare to New York, but his boss - in an act which probably saved his life - ordered him off the ship. While on board, he captured an image of his first class cabin, which has also been colourised for the show.
Contrary to the popular saying, the Titanic did not have deck chairs to rearrange, instead it had steamer chairs, like the one in the background which could be hired for the whole voyage for four shillings. GYM INSTRUCTOR WHO REFUSED A LIFE JACKET Gym instructor TW McCawley using the rowing machine and electrician William Parr trying out a ‘mechanical horse’ to test equestrian skills. Both men drowned, with McCawley refusing a lifebelt because he said he was fit enough to swim The ship boasted a state of the art gymnasium and its so-called ‘physical educator’ TW McCawley is pictured here by Frank Browne using the rowing machine.
The gym also had a ‘mechanical camel’ to improve abdominal and back muscles and a ‘mechanical horse’ to test equestrian skills, which is being ridden in the background by White Star Line electrician William Parr, one of nine shipbuilders on board to ensure the new liner ran smoothly. The gymnasium was strictly segregated - men, women and children had set hours when they could use its facilities. On the wall is a map showing the White Star Line’s routes around the world.
Confident of his fitness as the Titanic sank, McCawley told a passenger that he wouldn’t wear a lifebelt as it would hamper his swimming. Both he and Parr and drowned. WHITE STAR LINE'S MARINE SUPERINTENDENT WATCHES TITANIC DEPART White Star Line’s marine superintendent Benjamin Steele (bottom right) took a quiet moment away from the crowds to watch Titanic depart from Southampton On April 10, 1912, the Titanic pulled away from Berth 44 at Southampton at the start of her maiden transatlantic voyage.
Over 900 passengers were already on board – more would be picked up at Cherbourg in France, and the final few at Queenstown (now Cobh) in Ireland. Sitting on the right, away from the crowds waving goodbye to loved ones, was the White Star Line’s marine superintendent Benjamin Steele who had watched the start of countless maiden voyages. Ship workers and decorators worked until the last minute to get the Titanic ready, so to mask the smell of fresh paint the White Star Line filled the ship with flowers.
NEWSPAPER SELLER ANNOUNCES TRAGEDY This photo was taken outside the White Star Line’s offices in central London the day after the sinking and shows 16-year-old Ned Parfett. The newspaper seller died during WWI News of the disaster reached Britain and the United States within hours. The widespread shock swiftly turned to a grim fascination about the details of the sinking.
After some of the bodies of passengers and crew were brought ashore at Nova Scotia, the local police had to burn the clothes to stop souvenir hunters stealing them. This photo was taken outside the White Star Line’s offices in central London the day after the sinking and shows 16-year-old Ned Parfett. Four years later, he enlisted in the Royal Artillery to play his part in the Great War.
Tragically, just a few days before the end of the conflict, Ned was killed by a German shell as he collected his clothes to go on leave. ONLOOKERS CATCH A GLIMPSE OF TITANIC ON THE DAY SHE LAUNCHED Taken on 31st May 1911, this photo shows Titanic on the day of her launch underneath a giant gantry built especially for the construction of the Titanic and her sister ship Olympic Titanic and her sister ship Olympic were built under the giant gantries of the Harland and Wolff shipyard, the tallest structures in Belfast. The twin leviathons were what the Edwardians called ‘liners’ as they sailed on fixed routes or lines, making international travel accessible to millions for the first time.
On May 31, 1911, the day of Titanic’s launch, as this picture shows, a couple hurry to join over 100,000 spectators about to watch from specially built grandstands. At Harland and Wolff, there was no champagne bottle smashed against the hull, instead as one shipyard worker quipped: ‘They just builds ‘em and shoves ‘em in.’ PROUD ULSTERMEN WHO BUILD TITANIC AND OLYMPIC Two of the Olympic's three massive bronze propellors which were almost identical to the Titanic's - and beneath them are some of the 3000 of the proud Ulstermen who built the ships This picture shows two of the Olympic’s three massive bronze propellors which were almost identical to the Titanic’s and beneath them are some of the 3,000 proud Ulstermen who built the ships.
At the heart of the Titanic was its engine room, with 29 boilers heated by 159 furnaces – each hand-filled by shovel, providing 55,000 horsepower for the propellers as well as electricity for anything from the ship’s 10,000 lights to the kitchen mincing machines. The Titanic’s engines could not match her rivals the Mauretania or Lusitania for speed; the White Star Line instead focused on comfort, size and, fatefully, safety. LIFEBOATS THAT BROUGHT PASSENGERS TO SAFETY Lifeboats at The White Star Lines Pier 54 in NYC after the sinking of Titanic.
They were transported on Cunard liner Carpathia, which responded to Titanic’s distress signals and rescued more than 700 passengers The Titanic had 20 lifeboats – together they could hold just 1,178 people, barely half the number on board but this total was four more lifeboats than regulations required in 1912. Thirteen of them are pictured here, having been brought into New York harbour on the Cunard liner Carpathia, which responded to Titanic’s distress signals and rescued over 700 passengers. Some boats had been stripped of their name plates, flags and numbers, by passengers as mementos of their survival, or stolen by New York souvenir hunters.
The Titanic had been designed to keep each social class apart but in the lifeboats, that segregated world disappeared – grimy stokers were comforted by genteel governesses and American millionaires rowed alongside Lebanese immigrants. ANXIOUS RELATIVES SCAN SURVIVOR LISTS IN SOUTHAMPTON Crowds formed outside the White Star Line offices in Southampton, full of anxious relatives scanning lists of survivors hoping their loved-one was among them. Three-quarters of the Titanic’s 900-strong crew came from Southampton and, as news spread of the disaster, crowds formed outside the White Star Line offices in the city, full of anxious relatives scanning lists of survivors.
One woman told a local newspaper: ‘It is the suspense that hurts. If we could only know something – anything.’ Some made it inside the building and begged for news but, as the paper reported: ‘The clerks could only shake their heads as they nervously fingered the long list.
’ Only 212 crew members were rescued and in some Southampton streets every house lost someone on the Titanic. The documentary also features the only known existing film footage of the Titanic, dated from February 3, 1912 before the finishing touches had been added. New colourised footage has shown what life was really like onboard the RMS Titanic - as revealed in a new Channel 4 documentary Pictures of a man standing next to the Titanic reveal the huge scale of the ship Before she set sail, Titanic was actually in the shadow of her sister ship Olympic - of which historians have a much more comprehensive record of photos and footage.
In the footage, the Titanic is not fully painted, looks dirty and unfinished - in a very different condition from the famous images the public is used to seeing. Historian Dr Lesley-Anne Beadles comments in the programme: 'It does have the feel of something very unofficial, very behind-the-scenes, very sort of making of. 'The White Star line was completely about appearances, so it does have that feel of something that maybe we weren't quite supposed to see.
' What caused the 'unsinkable' Titanic's maiden voyage to end in diaster and why were there not enough lifeboats? On April 14 1912, Titanic struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean at around 23:40 local time, generating six narrow openings in the vessel's starboard hull, believed to have occurred as a result of the rivets in the hull snapping . The ship sank two hours and 40 minutes later, in the early hours of April 15. An estimated 1,517 people died.
The judge who led the British inquiry into the Titanic disaster, John Charles Bigham, 1st Viscount Mersey, wrote in his journal that the ship was travelling at 'excessive speed' and there was 'no reduction of speed' in the icy environment. Photograph of Titanic leaving Southampton at the start of her maiden voyage on April 10, 1912. Five days after this photo was taken the ship was on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean The 'unsinkable' liner was going at around 22.
5 knots or 25 miles per hour, just 0.5 knots below its top speed of 23 knots. It has been suggested that White Star Line chairman Bruce Ismay wanted to beat a record set by Titanic's sister ship, the RMS Olympic, on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York the year before.
However, Royal Museums Greenwich claims stories of the captain trying to make a speed record are 'without substance', despite the testimony from Mrs Lines. Another theory posited in 2004 by a US engineer was that a smouldering coal fire in the depths of Titanic meant the ship had to get to New York faster than originally planned. According to Robert Essenhigh at Ohio State University, Titanic's records show there was a fire one of Titanic's coal bunkers, forward bunker #6.
It was a clear, starry sky above the Titanic as it struck an iceberg in the night of April 14, 1912 (pictured: the actual iceberg which sank the ship, photographed from nearby German ship Prinz Adalbert) More than 1,500 people – around 70 per cent of the passengers onboard – tragically perished after the Titanic hit an iceberg 112 years ago Passengers who survived the tragedy told of a beautiful, cloudless night, with some even claiming they spent their final moments on deck before boarding a lifeboat discussing the brightness of the stars - so, how was it missed? One theory suggests that a freak weather event created the phenomenon, which possibly both obscured the iceberg until it was too late and hindered communication with a nearby ship. Historian and broadcaster Tim Maltin claims the Titanic's crew fell victim to a thermal inversion, which is caused by a band of cold air forcing itself underneath a band of warmer air, the Times reports. He believes that the cold current in the North Atlantic Ocean called Labrador pushed this cold air beneath the warm Gulf Stream, creating a mirage.
The light rays are bent downwards, which creates the illusion that the horizon is higher than it actually is. The scattered light also creates a haze lingering over the water, which Maltin believes likely hid the iceberg behind it in the moonless night. Those on the vantage point, the crow's nest of the ship, likely will have only seen the gap between true horizon and the refracted one as a haze.
This 'haze' was later described by surviving crew members as well as other ships in the area at the time. The survivor and rescuer reports clearly indicate a thermal inversion being present that night, according to Maltin, author of Titanic: A Very Deceiving Night. Lookouts later said the iceberg had looked dark as the haze blurred its lines and made it difficult to set apart from the sea.
'The reason why the berg appeared to be dark was because they were seeing it against a lighter haze,' Maltin told the Times. James Moody was on night watch when the collision happened and took the call from the watchman, asking him 'What do you see?' The man responded: 'Iceberg, dead ahead.' By 2.
20am, with hundreds of people still on board, the ship plunged beneath the waves, taking more than 1,500, including Moody, with it. Among the nearby ships which might have been able to help save some of the 2,240 passengers and crew was the SS Californian, which failed to communicate with the Titanic and spot that it was sinking because of the haze. It wasn't carrying any passengers and would have had plenty of space for the people on Titanic.
Due to the false horizon, crewmembers on the SS Californian thought they were looking at a much smaller ship that was closer to them, Maltin theorised. They thought as a small vessel, the other ship would not be equipped with a wireless operator, and therefore concluded the best way to communicate with the Titanic would be via a powerful morse lamp. This was briefly spotted by those on the Titanic, as Colonel Archibald Gracie, who survived the tragedy, later said.
He told how he pointed out a 'bright white light' to other passengers, which he believed to come from a ship 'about five miles off'. 'But instead of growing brighter [when I leaned over the rail of the ship], we men saw the light fade and then pass altogether,' Colonel Gracie was quoted as saying in the book 'Titanic: A Survivor's Story by Colonel Archibald Gracie' by Deborah Collcutt. The morse code sent from the SS Californian to the Titanic and back was distorted by the haze and therefore they couldn't effectively communicate, Maltin argues.
Famously, Titanic did not have enough lifeboats to hold the 2,224 souls on board. If it had, many more hundreds – if not all – of the lives that were lost that night could have been saved. Titanic had a total of 20 lifeboats, which all together could accommodate 1,178 people, just over half of the total (although two of these boats weren't launched when the ship went down).
There are several suggestions as to why there weren't more. Firstly, it was said that Titanic's designers felt too many lifeboats would clutter the deck and obscure views of the sea for first class passengers. Looking at a plan of Titanic, the lifeboats were mostly kept on the officers' promenade towards the front and the second class promenade towards the back.
The first class promenade, meanwhile, was almost completely free of lifeboats, meaning the first class passengers could stroll and admire clear views of the Atlantic on either side. Although it seems unthinkable now, Titanic's selling point was clearly its grandeur and luxury, not its safety. Additionally, it wasn't anticipated that Titanic would need its lifeboats to hold all passengers at the same time.
Advertisement After almost a century of being in the archives, the minute-long clip has sustained damage including scratches and looking grainy. Experts have now restored the footage, repairing the damage and adding colour, bringing a moving Titanic to life for the very first time. The amazing clip shows the ship sailing in full action - while tiny men can be glimpsed onboard the deck, showing its impressive size.
The colour footage also reveals that, unlike the rest of the ship, the wheelhouse has been painted white. Titanic In Colour can be viewed on Channel 4’s streaming sdrvice channel4.com.
Jonathan Mayo is author of Titanic: Minute By Minute published by Short Books Share or comment on this article: Tragic faces of Titanic seen in colour for the first time - from a traumatised widow to the lookout who took his own life after being taunted for failing to spot the iceberg in time e-mail 15 shares Add comment.
