Third Class Passengers

[Natoya]

Here you will find information on the Third Class of the Titanic.

[Natoya]

(Note: This will be kind of messy at first, as I'm only gathering information for Yami. It will be fixed later.)

The Titanic - Third Class Passengers

Many of those travelling third class or steerage were emigrants travelling to the United States from Ireland and Scandinavia. In all some 33 nationalities were represented in the passenger lists.

A third class ticket cost between £3 and £8

The information below contains statistics on some of the nationalities travelling in third class and survival accounts.

Irish:

There were around 120 Irish passengers on the Titanic most of whom were emigrants hoping for a better life in America. Most of them did not make it. However, Anna Kelly who had gone up on deck to investigate what had happened, survived in lifeboat 16. She later became a nun.

Finnish:

There were 63 Finnish passengers on the Titanic of whom only 20 survived. Mathilda Backstr was travelling to New York with her husband and brothers. She survived in one of the last lifeboats to leave - collapsible D. Her husband and brothers died.

Swedish:

There were about 26 Swedish passengers on board the Titanic of whom most were travelling third class. Many did not reach their destination. Mrs Hjalmar Sandstr, (Agnes Charlotta Bengtsson ) was travelling with her two daughters. They all survived the disaster in lifeboat 13.

Belgians:

There were 24 Belgians on board the Titanic, 23 in third class. Two lucky Belgians, Emma Duyvejonck and Henri Van der Steen were turned away at Southampton. Only 4 Belgians, all men, survived the disaster.

There were 706 third class passengers on board - 462 men, 165 women and 79 children

178 third class passengers survived the disaster - 75 men, 76 women and 27 children

Third-class cabins on Titanic were a significantly better lot than accommodations offered to emigrants just a few years earlier.
At the height of the 19th century, tickets purchased by emigrants migrating to the United States and other nations in the Western Hemisphere only promised "conveyance" to the New World.

Food, bedding and utensils were seldom included in the price of passage and even the matter of a berth to sleep in was a dicey proposition. Onboard Titanic, the situation was considerably improved. The White Star Line's publicity enticed the emigrant traveler with the promise that, "the interval between the old life and the new [would be] spent under the happiest possible conditions."

Titanic's third-class accommodations were located on E, F, and G-decks forward and D, E, F, and G-decks aft, well down in the Ship. Six occupant cabins housed families or same sex passengers. Further conventions dictated that women and children were sequestered aft in the Ship. Single men were berthed forward in an open space far away from the females.

The cabins were provided with heat and electrical lighting as part of the cost of passage. This seems obvious to us today, but in London, poor apartments still had gas lamps attached to coin-slot meters. The poor had to pay for light as they used it and when the penny's worth of gas had been burnt, the light went out.

Proper beds with spring and chain mattresses were also provided along with blankets and pillows; but no sheets--that came after World War I. But many of the cabins did have portholes and washbasins filled from a brass cistern.

Conspicuously missing, however, were bathtubs. There was only one tub for all third-class men, and another for the women. This was not stinginess on the part of White Star, but a social reality. The poor of the time were convinced that frequent bathing brought on lung disease, and so the demand for bathtubs was limited.

Traveling in this class was William Henry Allen, 35, a toolmaker who boarded in Southampton. Allen perished in the sinking, but his suitcase was retrieved during Expedition 2000.