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The Titanic Photographs Collection.  

Photo Essay Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4
Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9


Chapter III: THE TITANIC PHOTOGRAPHS

This Chapter gives enlargements of the photographs in Chapter 2. Father Browne's captions are annotated and corrected where necessary.
Although captioned as the <I>Titanic</I>, this postcard is actually her sister ship <I>Olympic</I> under construction at Harland & Wolff Ltd in Belfast.
Unlike the previous postcard, this one was purchased after the <I>Titanic</I> disaster. In this case it is a photograph of the <I>Titanic</I>. She appears to be about to set sail on her trials on Tuesday, April 2nd, 1912
This photograph was taken at Waterloo Station, London, at 9:45 on Wednesday 10th of April, 1912. The photographer graphically describes the train as <I>the first and last Titanic special</I>.
For many years it was thought that the gentle man on the left with John Jacob Astor, who perished in the <I>Titanic</I> disaster. In fact this is his cousin, William Waldorf Astor, who had moved to England from the United States in 1890.
Frank Browne said the boat train left Waterloo station at 9:45 yet several other Titanic passengers recalled afterwards that the train departed as early as 8 . Here the photographer has leaned far outside the train as it rounds a curve immediately upon leaving the station.
As he is just about to board the Titanic, Frank Browne has taken this image looking down the length of the ship. In the distance is a second-class gangway, identical to the one on which he is standing.
These three ships, the St Louis and the Philadelphia (of the American line) and the majestic (White Star line), had their voyages cancelled by the coal strike which had occurred in England that spring. Their coal was used for the <I>Titanic</I>. Their passengers, and many other crew men, were also transferred to the new White Star Liner.
The photographer has leaned out over the side of the ship with his camera to capture more of the tugs below. In the distance is the far ashore of the river Test, with some private yachts at anchor in between. On the left of the photograph is lifeboat number seven. It would be the first to be launched as the ship sank.
Moving over to the port side of the bold deck, Frank Brown captures a crowd of mostly local citizens seeing the liner off.
The photographer has now moved over to the starboard bow of A-Deck where the tugs <I>Hector</I> and <I>Neptune</I> can be seen nudging the ship's bow. In the distance the stern of the liner<I> New York</I> has swung out in front of the <I>Titanic</I>. On the forward well deck, third class passengers and of duty crew men also watch what is happening below.
Once again the camera is held out from the side of the ship. The <I>Titanic</I> has already rounded the end of the jetty where, as it passed the American liner <I>New York</I>, the latter broke free from its moorings and began to swing towards the larger ship. Passengers can be seen leaning out from the large promenade deck windows to see the anticipated collision.
The <I>New York</I> is being pushed by a tug into a temporary position at the end of the quay.
This is the third and last of Frank Browne's valuable postcards. The photograph, taken by F.H. Arnott, shows the tug <I>Vulcan</I> alongside the <I>Titanic</I>. The ship was delayed for an hour on leaving Southampton after its near collision with the New York.
The boy on the right is Jack Odell, a member of the family with whom Frank Browne is travelling, and in the distance is Majorr Archibald Butt, military aide to President William Howard Taft.
The lone figure on the 187 yards long deck has been described as Captain Smith, yet Frank Brown's album makes no mention of this. In the distance is the Portuguese ship <I>RNSP Tagus</I>, which is about to follow the Solent's Western Channel by the Needles. The <I>Titanic</I> itself will swing left to follow the Eastern Channel by Cowes and Portsmouth.
One of the forts that guard Spithead - No man's Land fort in the Solent.
Newspapers describe this as dropping the pilot at Portsmouth, where he will be taken ashore and by an Isle of Watight boat. The lifeboat shown is No 10. This is one of very few photographs of a <I>Titanic</I> lifeboat so clear as to show the ships name.
This is apparently American short story writer Jacques Fotrell, standing on the boat deck outside the <I>Titanic's</I> gymnasium. The author of the popular 'Thinking Machine@ mysteries, he had a number of unpublished stories on board with him which would be lost forever. Having turned 37 only the day before sailing, he would lose his life in the disaster.
The gentleman in the white flannels is T. W. McCawley, the 34 -year-old physical educator from Aberdeen. Another cross-channel passenger would years later recall McCawley as rather strict in general with the passengers, but that he would soften his demeanour for the children on board.
The <I>Titanic's</I> first sunrise. Taken near Land's End, Cornwall, on the voyage between Cherbourg and Queenstown, about 6:45 a.m. on 11th April, 1912.
Taken from the aft end of A-deck, this photograph is looking for it toward the rear of the ships superstructure. On the deck abode, a group of second-class passengers steer back at the camera.
Stepping foward a few feet, and turning to the left, Frank Browne has encountered an unidentified couple taking an early stroll. Overhead, deckchairs are stacked against the railing of the second-class promenade.
Six -year-old Robert Douglas Steadman of Tuxedo Park, New York, spinning a top while his father, Frederick, watches. Both father and son would survive the sinking but Frederick's photographs - taken with the camera seen here on shoulder strap - did not.
Father Browne may be leaning out over the rails, as he has done in order to take other photographs, but given the uneven horizon he is more likely holding the camera and arm's-length. In the distance, an emergency boat - number one - can be seen hanging over the ship side.
The wake trailing off to starboard confirms Frank Brown's description of the 'winding pathway 'eor the waters', and that an irregular course was being taken in order to test the compasses.
Taken aboard in the <I>Adriatic</I>prior to Frank Browne's voyage on the <I>Titanic's</I>, the photograph shows two wireless operators. The gentleman on the left is Jack Phillips, who would stick to his post on board the <I>Titanic's</I> summoning rescuers for those who, unlike himself, were leaving the ship in lifeboats. One of the undisputed heroes of the disaster, there are memorials on both sides of the Atlantic erected in his memory.
The Titanic's junior wireless operator, Harold Bride, is shown here at his post. Because this is the only picture ever taken in the liner's Marconi room, Frank Brown kept it, even though it is a double exposure.
Frank Brown described in this view as the ship dropping anchor, but the wake at her stern shows her to be still under way. She is clearly about to stop, however, for already a gangway door in her hull has been opened, below the forward well deck.
The tender <I>America</I> has now puledl alongside the open gangway door, and looking up, Mr McLean has photographed Captain Smith looking down from the starboard bridge wing, with the leadsman's platform underneath and slightly forward of him.
Third-class passengers thronged the stern of the ship, where can be seen a sign warning of the danger of the propellers below. A tiny dot at the top of the fourth funnel is the grimy face of a stoker who climbed up for a bird's eye view of the Irish port, and whom to some seemed like the black spectre of death looking down. The superstitious among the passengers saw this as an ill omen.
The giant starboard anchor of the <I>Titanic's</I> is raised for the last time. It took several minutes for the anchor to come to the surface. The liner used a length of six cables of wrought iron chain work. Each cable measured 15 fathoms.
The anchor is now up and the <I>Titanic's</I> is slowly steaming out of the harbour. The sunshade, visible along A-deck in the centre of the ship, will likely be raised before the ship reaches full speed and the resulting wind tears it.