We watched some excerpts from the film'Titanic'.
Many passengers were immigrants who travelled to America to start a new life. The main character in the film was an immigrant.
Some of the dilemmas:
The rivets holding the ship together were sub-standard. Was Harland and Wolfe, the shipbuilder, responsible? Were they trying to cut costs?
What about Bruce Ismay? He was the managing director of The White Star Line and wanted Titanic to travel faster across the Atlantic than the ships made by his rival company Cunard. The ship was going too fast to avoid the iceberg despite 5 iceberg warnings. Also, he wanted the ship to look good and didn't want lots of lifeboats cluttering up the deck.
Captain Smith was on his last voyage. Was he the right person to be in charge of the maiden voyage of this huge ship? He was responsible for the safety of the ship and should have slowed down when warnings were given. Perhaps his faith in Titanic was too great and he didn't take an objective view.
Thomas Andrew designed Titanic. However he made the airtight compartments too small in order to make the ceilings of the first class passengers higher.
Was money a factor? More people wanted yo travel on the fastest ship. Costs were cut when the ship was built. Thomas Andrew was restricted in his designs.
SO..... Who WAS responsible? We had a heated debate! Annabella and others thought that it was the fault of Bruce Ismay for putting too much pressure on Captain Smith. Evie, Harrison and Emma L thought it was the fault of Captain Smith because he ignored the iceberg warnings and didn't do his job properly, bowing to pressure from Bruce Ismay.
After the debate, a show of hands suggested that the majority of people thought it was the fault of Captain Smith.
We watched short clips from the film showing the points at which Titanic struck the iceberg and when the ship broke in two and sank. Afterwards we looked at some historical sources of information and discussed the passenger lists.
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