Carpathia Third Class?

[iceberggg]

The Royal Mail Ship Carpathia, along with many others, carried many immigrants in mediocre conditions. However, their struggle has been overlooked for so long. What was third class like on the Carpathia?

 

[Mary Lou Cavallini]

I supposedly had a distant relative aboard the Carpathia traveling third class. I don't know her name but she was traveling back to Austria-Hungary to introduce her baby to the family there. I have heard that she was made to give up her quarters to the Titanic survivors and had to sleep on the deck with her child leaning against the smokestack to try to keep warm.

 

[Seumas]

The Royal Mail Ship Carpathia, along with many others, carried many immigrants in mediocre conditions. However, their struggle has been overlooked for so long. What was third class like on the Carpathia?

I'm sympathetic politically to your angle but I have to strongly dispute that the Carpathia's third class accommodation would have been "mediocre".

Luxurious ? Not by any means. Cunard however were a popular and respected company who would have provided perfectly acceptable bunks bedding, sanitation and dining facilities to their third class passengers. It would have been a bare basic kind but nonetheless probably more clean and tidy than some of the homes they had left behind in Europe's most poverty and crime ridden cities.

I supposedly had a distant relative aboard the Carpathia traveling third class. I don't know her name but she was traveling back to Austria-Hungary to introduce her baby to the family there. I have heard that she was made to give up her quarters to the Titanic survivors and had to sleep on the deck with her child leaning against the smokestack to try to keep warm.

The odds are very strongly against anything like that happening. You can discount that story.

No one in their right mind would forced a woman to sleep on deck with a baby particularly when the temperature at night was freezing. That just flies in the face of common sense.

Carpathia's third class passengers were shuffled around to free up some room for Titanic survivors but many of the latter still had to sleep in the smoking rooms, lounges and dining rooms for want of room.

 

[Mary Lou Cavallini]

I'm sympathetic politically to your angle but I have to strongly dispute that the Carpathia's third class accommodation would have been "mediocre".

Luxurious ? Not by any means. Cunard however were a popular and respected company who would have provided perfectly acceptable bunks bedding, sanitation and dining facilities to their third class passengers. It would have been a bare basic kind but nonetheless probably more clean and tidy than some of the homes they had left behind in Europe's most poverty and crime ridden cities.


The odds are very strongly against anything like that happening. You can discount that story.

No one in their right mind would forced a woman to sleep on deck with a baby particularly when the temperature at night was freezing. That just flies in the face of common sense.

Carpathia's third class passengers were shuffled around to free up some room for Titanic survivors but many of the latter still had to sleep in the smoking rooms, lounges and dining rooms for want of room.

Where did you get this information? I'd like to research the third class further.

 

[Seumas]

Where did you get this information? I'd like to research the third class further.

One to try is George Behe's (a top historian of the Titanic disaster) book "Voices from the Carpathia". This book includes dozens of testimonies from her passengers and crew. You find out what they went through and the confusion and hurried reorganisation on board the Carpathia as they prepared to receive survivors and what happened when they finally did.

There is also Captain Arthur Rostron's evidence to the enquires in the USA and UK which you can read for free online.

The whole crew of RMS Carpathia did everything they could in difficult circumstances. They deserve a lot of credit for their hard work on April 15th 1912.

One thing I can pretty much positively assure you of is that no woman with a baby in her arms would have been turfed out of her cabin and forced to huddle up against the funnel for warmth.

The British Parliament had passed strict laws regarding British ships carrying immigrants in the years preceding the Titanic disaster relating to how they should be accommodated and looked after. RMS Carpathia was a British ship and had to abide by these laws.

Premier North Atlantic immigrant carriers such as Cunard and White Star obeyed these laws to the letter. They didn't want the terrible publicity, fights in court and large fines for breaking the law.

Your relative was likely woken up in the middle of the night and bluntly, without explanation, quickly moved from cabin X to cabin Y. It would have been a confusing and upsetting experience but when the morning broke and she saw the Titanic's lifeboats coming alongside she would no doubt have understood the reason why.