Funnel Face

[Joshua Gulch]

Phil,
In reading the testimony, I have to agree with Remco on the spiral stairway up the turbine shaft. He would have come out the deckhouse at the base of the fourth funnel.

Josh.

 

[Philippe Delaunoy]

Hi all,

What's the best place to find a detailed deck plan of the Titanic ?

Phil

 

[Joshua Gulch]

Phil,
Try the deck plans on ET's main page.

Josh.

 

[Philippe Delaunoy]

Steve,

Here is the response received from Davidson & Associates about the picture :

"We do have a picture which when enlarged shows what could be the outline of
the man on the top of the
fourth funnel. There is definateley something there but not clear enough to
know if it is definately a man.
Fr Brownes account of the journey has no reference to the incident."

I keep trying to find the name of the passenger(s) who saw him. But I didn't have so much time for the moment. I've contacted George Behe who is pretty certain the incident occurs but he forgot the name of the passenger.

Kind regards.

Phil

 

[steve b]

Hi Phil, the way i read the aforementioned quote from the author, it sounded as if there were several witnesses to the incident. The second photograph i have seen posted here was pretty convincing to me. I think of more interest would be, who is the person taking the photograph, and did they happen to take note of the face at all? My guess would be the person who had taken the phtograph probably would have had theyre attention focused on the goings on on the deck and not the funnels, but the question would have been worth asking if merely to find out if they did notice, and how the face or object would have appeared to them at the naked eye, even if only from a long range perspective

 

[Dave Gittins]

I don't know if it's the photo you are talking about but a photo showing the head of the stoker was taken from the tender America but Mr Whyte of Queenstown. (See Francis Browne's album) It's not clear who he was, maybe a reporter. The photo was taken from off the port quarter of Titanic.

 

[Mike Herbold]

Dave:
I never noticed this before until your thread, but how ironic it was that the tender "America" helped the Titanic at Queenstown, and that the liner "Amerika" was one of those giving iceberg warnings to Titanic just a few days later.

In looking at the picture you mentioned, it's interesting that on the previous pages, 71 and 72, there are two other pictures taken from the "America" by a Mr. McLean, including the classic one of Capt. Smith looking down over the side. McLean must have been another of the press reporters and photographers (see page 97).

 

[Mike Herbold]

Philippe:
Just noticed your note, or else I would have included this above. On page 44 of the "Last Days" there is a hand-written note next to the photo in the original album, presumambly written by Fr. Browne or by Mr. Whyte, which reads:
"In it appears is seen the stoker, whose appearance at the top of the fourth (dummy) funnel (which is in reality a huge ventilator) caused such consternation."

 

[Svetlana Strezeva]

I am reading Lawrence Beesley's (a survivor) account called "The Loss of S.S. Titanic. Its story and its lessons" (Available on Gutenberg.org free.)

Okay, in chapter 2, From Southampton to the Night of Collision, there is a paragraph I can't decipher:

"As one of the tenders containing passengers and mails neared the Titanic, some of those on board gazed up at the liner towering above them, and saw a stoker's head, black from his work in the stokehold below, peering out at them from the top of one of the enormous funnels--a dummy one for ventilation--that rose many feet above the highest deck. He had climbed up inside for a joke, but to some of those who saw him there the sight was seed for the growth of an "omen", which bore fruit in an unknown dread of dangers to come. An American lady--may she forgive me if she reads these lines!--has related to me with the deepest conviction and earnestness of manner that she saw the man and attributes the sinking of the Titanic largely to that."

I don't understand. What is a stoker? What was he doing in the funnel? And why did the passengers on the "tender" find that odd?

 

[Jason Schleisman]

The word "stoker" is a noun and refers to a person (usually male) who has the job of shoveling coal into the ship's boilers. Sound like fun?

God only knows what he was doing in the funnel and if he was even there at all.

Imagine if you were on a tender about to pull up next to the Titanic (oh happy thought!). As you look up in amazement, at the very top rim of the fourth funnel you see a man, blackened with soot, poking his head out from the top and staring at you. Would you not find it strange as usually the only thing to be popping up from a funnel is smoke and steam?

 

[Dave Gittins]

There is a photo that shows the head appearing at the top of the funnel in Francis Browne's album, so Beesley wasn't imagining it. The onlookers may not have known the fourth funnel was a dummy. This would have added to their surprise. The significance of the story probably grew after the sinking.

Curiously, at the end of Olympic's maiden voyage, passengers appeared at the top of the fourth funnel and merrily waved their hats to the onlookers. How they got there is anybody's guess. As Olympic didn't sink, nobody saw anything significant in their antics.

[Moderator's Note: This message and the two immediately above it, originally a separate thread in a different topic, have been moved to this pre-existing thread addressing the same incident. MAB]

 

[Caroline Mendes Ferreira]

Mystery of a photograph

One of the photos of the Titanic I noticed a mystery if they can obcervar this photograpy there is a man standing in the fourth chimney is it any employee of the engine room. Look at the photo I scored.

 

[Stanley C Jenkins]

As David said, he could NOT have climbed the ladder on the front.

Cut-away drawing of the Olympic class liners that were published around 1912 show that there was a ladder inside the dummy funnel.

 

[Stanley C Jenkins]

Here is one of the cut-away drawings mentioned in the previous post.

 

[Jason1981]

I've seen two photographs taken from atop the forth funnel on the Olympic. In one of them, there was a man leaning back against the edge of the funnel smoking a cigarette. Now, if I'm not mistaken, there was a way to climb to the top of the forth funnel from the inside.

I'll post a link to the website where I found the picture, I don't know if I can post the pick here on the website or not, so...

Aboard the Titanic

I hope this sheds some light on the mystery.

 

[PRR5406]

The alleged appearance of the head from the fourth funnel top was described by at least one survivor as "the angel of death surveying the ship". Unfortunately, I can't find the reference to that quote. Didn't the fourth funnel also house the kennel?

 

[Ioannis Georgiou]

It is believed by some that the deck house at the base of the 4th funnel (not the 4th funnel itself!!!!!) had aft the kennels as this was shown in later deck plans on Olympic. I have my problem with that and also the early deck plans show the kennels on F Deck.

 

[Mark Baber]

The location of the kennels has been an oft-discussed subject here over the years. See, for example, the following:

Dogs & kennels

Ship's dog kennels

Titanic Pets

 

[Jack Dawson]

There is a photo that shows the head appearing at the top of the funnel in Francis Browne's album, so Beesley wasn't imagining it. The onlookers may not have known the fourth funnel was a dummy. This would have added to their surprise. The significance of the story probably grew after the sinking.

Curiously, at the end of Olympic's maiden voyage, passengers appeared at the top of the fourth funnel and merrily waved their hats to the onlookers. How they got there is anybody's guess. As Olympic didn't sink, nobody saw anything significant in their antics.

Hi sir, I didn't know that about the Olympic, that's interesting. Do you think a small group of passengers found out about the access and asked an officer to be accompanied/escorted there?

 

[Christophe Puttemans]

I recently started playing Titanic:adventure out of time, and the "false smokestack" plays a key part in that story. In the game, a passenger recalls seeing somebody on top of the fourth funnel when Titanic was docked in Queenstown. Ther player then has to descend into the engine room to access the funnel.

That's why I think the entrance to the fourth funnel lies in crew-only parts of the ship, and even if passengers knew about this, they normally wouldn't get permssion to climb it. I have no idea how a group of passengers managed to do just that on the Olympic.