TRUTH SEEKING RMS TITANIC
The story of the 'Great Royal Mail Ship' is, in press jargon, a 'story with legs' and I feel that those legs will certainly be running in a hundred years' time. It surely is a classic story.
I am a self-styled 'Truth Seeker' and I have been interested in the BIG T for quite a few years. Here I set out my reasons for that and why I booked on to visit the fascinating travelling exhibition ably presented by WHITE STAR INCORPORATED LTD (WSI) when it visited Exeter in September 2025, three months ago.
Trust Pilot likes Reviewers to submit their opinions promptly after an experience. This I could not do because I felt that I should, out of courtesy, give time for WSI to reply to my partly critical 17 QUESTIONS mentioned below. WSI have not replied and more curiously this is the first review they are having on Trust Pilot. So this is me 'Truth Seeking' and I hope that the work I have done is interesting to you.
So what is WHITE STAR INCORPORATED LTD (WSI) all about? The MISSION is simple: 'To bring the TITANIC story to life.' There is an excellent 'OFFICIAL GUIDE' leading the way in many deep topics that I thoroughly enjoyed reading. I did ask during my visit if the GUIDE is available for purchase. I did not have a clear answer but I was given one at the Expert Session at the Exhibition I attended.
If you are a history buff already you will have read the phrase 'history is a different place'. It certainly is and one of the many good things about the BIG T story is how many features of 'going down to the sea in ships' have radically improved. Take the obvious example of lifeboats. BIG T had 20, of three different types, and in total they could have taken 1178 souls but only 1503 survived the sinking.
The Board of Trade had previously legislated that the number of lifeboat places available was to be based on the tonnage of the vessel. It actually had nothing to do with the number of souls on board! Now I can't go into many of the thousands of facts and figures here of course. I am just whetting your appetite to visit the magnificent EXHIBITION if you can, and do follow my research in my 17 QUESTIONS (details on requesting it below).
I do need to mention here that my research revealed that it was common practice in 1912, when a vessel was lost, not to pay wages owing to deceased crew's next of kin. Similarly only a few special case surviving passengers were compensated for their traumatic experience. Please do read my fuller account of these circumstances in my QUESTION 17.
Since 2007 the new law 'The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007' created a new statutory offence of corporate manslaughter. That was introduced 95 years after TITANIC was lost. Before this Act, prosecutions relied on the common law offence of gross negligence manslaughter, which required identifying a "controlling mind" within the company. This was often difficult in large organisations where responsibility was spread across multiple managers. But in the latter period in the construction of sister ships OLYMPIC and TITANIC it was Bruce ISMAY who appears to be a 'controlling mind'. (My thanks to WIKIPAEDIA for some of that detail). Again we remember 'history is a different place' but it may be that a legal suit against WHITE STAR would have been possible if crew and passenger survivors had initiated an action. Perhaps they did but I have not come across any evidence of that.
Well I think that is enough 'truth seeking' here from me, so I leave you with the recommendation to visit the impressive TITANIC Exhibition if you can.
My 17 QUESTIONS come with 'Answers and Comments' by experts.
(including Dik BARTON who dived to the wreck 22 times. (Dik is his name. That is not a typo)
Requesting a free copy of' 17 QUESTIONS'.
Please either visit or write a physical post letter to me C/O Toy and Model Museum, Chapel Street, SIDMOUTH, EX10 8ND after Easter 2026 when the Museum reopens.
This REVIEW is automatically sent to the business and they can comment here.
Thank you for reading this and my thanks to Trust Pilot for this useful platform. If you could spare a quick 'like' I would be grateful.