Grand staircase of Titanic? or Olympic?

The mirror was mentioned in the book ''Titanic Voices'':

"Charles Willson, who carved the central portion of the Honour and Glory Crowning Time panel...remembered that when the Titanic finally set sail from Belfast there had not been time to set a clock into the similar ornate carved panel over the First Class Staircase, and a mirror had to be substituted until the clock arrived."

It's interesting that Willson said "similar ornate carved panel" because that would imply they weren't the same.
 
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It seems strange that a major part of Titanic's interior would not have been in place already.I read about last minute activities like paint and carpeting being installed, dishes and crockery coming aboard in mounting piles waiting to be put away etc. This frenetic activity was going on during the days leading up to the voyage. Very interesting about the mirror though.
 
Would be interesting if they found the circular mirror inside the wreck or the debris field. (assuming the Titanic left Southampton with the mirror and not the clock).


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Looking at the wreck photos, not only has the staircase itself gone, but also the banisters and wall panels showing the wall to the lifts behind it.
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Also from this Ken Marschall painting (which might be outdated given it's was painted back in the 1990's), we see the roof and above the Grand Staircase has fallen in even with the boat deck support beams gone showing not just the dome broke but the roof literally opened up like a hinge or sardine can as the Staircase possibly popped out.
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Note: As a another point from Post 31, would't it be possible that Charles Wilson descendants might have the original plans for both Olympic and Titanic's Grand Stair Case Panels?
 
Skywatcher said:
The first is the grand staircase on Olympic vs. Titanic. Some say that Olympic did not have "Honor and Glory crowning time" at all, and instead the forward grand staircase had this simpler time piece:


As we know, there are many images of the "Honor and Glory" staircase (all of which I assume were taken on board Olympic), so am I correct in assuming that the staircase shown in the picture is Olympic's aft grand staircase? And therefore am I right in assuming that Titanic had this same timepiece on her aft grand staircase?
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Don't know where and when this came up but have seen it often that the photograph of the aft staircase with the simple clock was said to be from Olympic and the other with Honor & Glory from Titanic. Both ships had the same staircase and clocks, Britannic was similar too. There might have been a few small differences but there are no known photographs from Titanic to say.


Skywatcher said:
The second issue is that of identifying Titanic and Olympic in photographs. It would seem that initially, Titanic was built to completely resemble Olympic, with the open A-deck promenade and evenly-spaced B-deck windows, etc. but at some point soon after the B-deck private promenades were added, necessitating the change in windows, as well as the addition of the enclosed A-deck promenade. My question is in what order these changes were made, and roughly when? At the moment I end up confusing myself when trying to identify some images (I have them in a book but not electronically) without knowing in what order the external changes to Titanic were made.

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Both images are from Titanic, the first at the day of her launch (31st May 1911) the other one before her maiden voyage (possibly April 8th?).
Work on B Deck started by late August or early September 1911, the work on the forward A Deck started by February 1912.
 
That's interesting, maybe they were considering the inclusion of deluxe suites for some time and changed the design with regards to that area soon after the launch? However, why waiting so much to enclose the forward Promenade, given that for that time Olympic had been in service for almost 8 months and the inconveniences of the un-enclosed promenade would have been obvious from the maiden voyage? Could it be that the disadvantages of the unenclosed promenade were only discovered in the winter months and therefore the the modifications were introduced in Titanic only in February?
 
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