Chronology – Sinking of S.S. TITANIC

Some historians mistakenly claim a "one setback" system for timekeeping. Under this erroneous system the starboard watch was to work its regular shift until passenger "midnight," then tack its extra 24 minutes onto the watch after 8 bells.  At that point, the Port Watch would have come on duty and all clocks on the ship, passenger and crew, would be set back 47 minutes to 11:27 p.m. in April 15th hours. This single change system is impossible for several reasons. First, none of the crew ever referred to the upcoming change of watch as the “12:24 watch change.” To a man, Titanic’s crew called it the “midnight change of watch.”  This universal description means that on crew clocks it should have been “midnight” with both hands of the clock on the numeral “12” when the watch changed.

Another major flaw in the single 47 minute setback of the crew clock lies in its failure to share the extra time between the first and second officers. If the time were set back only at the crew’s “midnight” change of watch, then Second Officer Lightoller would have worked no extra minutes.  His relief, First Officer Murdoch, would have been forced to work all 47 minutes of the setback because his shift spanned Civil Midnight.  One thing that never happens in a quasi-military structure such as the officers of a merchant ship is for extra duty to fall on senior officers. It may have been that the Second Officer would have been asked to sacrifice his time in this way, but never the First Officer in place of the Second.  The two-setback system outlined in this paper shares the extra time equally among the affected officers.

It should be noted that even in a single-setback system the change of watch would have occurred at 12:24 a.m. in April 14th hours. According to the crew, the accident took place 20 minutes prior to their midnight change of watch. This puts it at the same 12:04 a.m. in April 14th hours as this paper shows to be the correct time. That works out to 11:40 in crew time.

The need to keep track of two separate times from 10:00 p.m. until Civil Midnight made it impossible for Titanic to have just one master clock. As would be expected, the ship was fitted with two masters even though the total number of slave clocks, 48, was fewer than could be handled by one master clock alone. According to “The Shipbuilder” magazine (Vol. VI, Midsummer, 1911), the clocks were supplied by the Magneta company:

Magneta Clocks

The clocks, of which there are 48 throughout each vessel, have been supplied by the Magneta Time Co., Ltd., and are all actuated electrically on the Magneta system, which obviates the use of galvanic batteries. They are controlled by two master clocks placed in the chart room, so that they may work in complete unison and each register exactly the same time.  One of the master clocks is illustrated in Fig. 134.

Fig. 134--One of the Master Clocks (Illustration not shown.)

As is well known to ocean travelers, the ship's clocks gain over half an hour each day when going westwards and lose a corresponding amount when returning to Europe.  To allow for this difference in time the master clocks are set each day at noon by the officer in charge, who puts them backwards or forwards according to the longitude.

Corroboration Titanic carried two master clocks as described by “The Shipbuilder” article can be found on page 30 of the Harland & Wolff notebook kept in the company’s drawing office as a quick reference for the construction of both Olympic and Titanic:

Electric Clocks.  2 master clocks

                 48 secondary clocks.

No records have thus far surfaced as to why Titanic and its sister ship, Olympic, were equipped with dual master clocks. Lacking any better information, the obvious answer seems to be that two master clocks allowed the ship to be divided into two time “zones.” One zone would have been for the crew and the other for the passengers.

There is some anecdotal evidence that installation of the clock system was hurried. Even today, there is debate over whether or not a clock face was installed in the main grand staircase, or whether its space was filled with a plain mirror. Some mis-wiring of the slave clocks may also have occurred. Testimony from ship's barber Weikman indicated the clock in his shop showed 11:40 o'clock in crew time at impact. Survivors of the first class men's smoking lounge also said the time shown there was about 11:40 even though it should have displayed 12:04 o'clock.

With all those clocks, it is surprising how few specific time references there are in the testimonies from survivors. And what references exist are often contradictory. Vague memories of either the o'clock time or the duration of evens is something forensic investigators of modern traumatic events find common. Human beings are not good at keeping track of time without looking at a clock or personal timepiece. While there are many contradictions contained within the testimonies of survivors, most appear to be either April 14th, crew, or April 15th hours. Table A5 illustrates how the claimed times of events interleave.

Time Change System Used In Titanic

 Table A-4

Witness Time Comparisons

 Table A-5