What fare class, age and sex tell us about ship survival rates on the Titanic
A little after midnight on April 15, 1912, two terrible realisations came to engineer Joseph Bell.
The first was that the RMS Titanic was sinking.
The second was that there was only space for just over 1000 people in the ship’s lifeboats.
This number was less than half the total number of passengers and crew aboard the 46,000-tonne ocean liner. At least as many people would share its fate.
Perhaps Bell’s biggest fear - apart from his own fate in a rapidly filling boiler room
- was what would happen when the passengers discovered there were too many of them and not enough places. What would the crew do?
Would it be “women and children first?”
Striking the iceberg set in motion a grim game of musical chairs, which left those still standing on the ship with little chance.
The freezing temperatures of the North Atlantic, which made it so treacherous for ice and ultimately the Titanic, also meant that anyone left in the water would have minutes to live.
What determined survival in the following 90 minutes was the class, sex and age of the passengers.
Fortunately, we have a comprehensive passenger list for the doomed maiden voyage, which tells us everything from the birthday to the exact fare paid by each passenger. Most importantly, we know if they survived the night of April 14.
James Cameron’s 1997 blockbuster film Titanic would have us believe that the more you paid for your ticket, the better your odds of survival were.
However, if we look at the passenger list data, it’s not so cut and dry.
There are some classes of traveller who had far better odds than others.
Would you have survived the Titanic?
