I hesitated before creating yet another Titanic Web site, but after I saw the movie Titanic (that tells you how long this page has been around), I was inspired to finish up some research I had started to do quite some time before (and had nearly forgotten). I was curious about the demographics of the passengers and crew of the Titanic -- who perished, who survived, and who occupied which lifeboats. How gravely was the tragedy enhanced by class distinction and prejudice?

On this site I have compiled numbers, comparing several different sources. The numbers make it all too clear that a rule of First Class First far outweighed any guiding principle of Women and Children First. In addition to simply compiling numbers, however, I have included some notes and analysis, and I have also listed the sources I used to compile the data.

DEMOGRAPHICS OF THE TITANIC PASSENGERS: DEATHS, SURVIVALS, AND LIFEBOAT OCCUPANCY

Totals Deaths and Survivals

Further Steerage Breakdown

NOTES ON THE TABLES ABOVE

1. There is no exact or definitive number for the people aboard the Titanic, nor for those who survived. There are official documents, such as a Contract Ticket List, a Certificates of Clearance, lists of alien passengers prepared for the United States Immigration Service. There were two official lists of deceased passengers created in 1912. There are discrepancies, inaccuracies, inconsistences, ommissions, and other mistakes with both names and numbers. Researchers, such as Michael A. Findlay, Philip Hind, and Lester J. Mitcham, have been able to correct many errors and solve many mysteries, but there will always be a few problems that will never be solved. Because of their research, however, even if an exact number will never known, wild guesses and estimates from the past can be rejected, and the totals, if not precise, can be viewed as pretty close.
2. Indebted as I am to Michael A. Findlay and others, the numbers on this page are based on my own count of names from lists I have compiled using several sources. I will take responsibility for any errors and caution that the numbers should be treated with skepticsim.
3. Figures for the crew are even less reliable. No accurate crew list was compiled at the time. Many extra crew members were added just before she was launched after the crew list had been compiled.

DISCUSSION OF THE TABLES ABOVE

To me, a non-statistician, the tables above show significant indications of class discrimination. The rule was not necessarily "Women and children first," but "First Class first."

CLASS DISTINCTIONS

1. For some perspective, here is the price of tickets: First Class tickets ranged from £30 for a berth to £870 for a luxury suite with a private fifty-foot promenade. A Second Class ticket could be purchased for as little as £12. Steerage tickets ranged from £3 to £8. I have seen various estimates of how much that would be worth in current US dollars, but the cheapest ticket would have cost a clerk, typist, or shipyard worker a month's salary. The most expensive First Class ticket was similar in price to that of the most expensive luxury automobile.
2. First class women and children were about 6% of those aboard the Titanic, but constituted 20% of the survivors. In contrast, steerage passengers were a third of all aboard, but only one fourth of those saved.
3. First Class suites, berths, and social rooms were located in the center of the ship on the higher decks. They had immediate access to the boat deck and all of the lifeboats.
4. Second Class rooms were further aft, but Second Class passengers did have immediate access the part of the boat deck closest to the stern.
5. Steerage passengers had rooms on lower decks and no direct or immediate access the boat deck. Many steerage passengers who survived did so only by reaching the last of the lifeboats that were launched. A few men survived only by being plucked from the sea.
6. It is difficult for us now living close to a century later to realize and imagine how different people lived and thought. Bigotry of all sorts, especially classism and racism were commonplace and accepted or expected by both the privileged classes and races and the underprivileged.
7. By law (passed for public health reasons), gates separating steerage passengers from the other passengers had to be locked. Back then steerage passengers were equated with emigrants who were equated with disease and pestilence.
8. There is contradictory evidence about the degree of physical restraint used to keep Steerage passengers from getting to the lifeboats. In addition to the reports of gates being locked and passageways blocked by armed guards, testimony by at least one steerage passenger indicated there was no such restraint.
9. Annie Kelly, an Irish steerage passenger, said that the stewards not only did not wake the steerage passengers with an alarm but told alarmed third class passenger who came up to the deck to go back down as there was no danger.
10. Colonel Archibald Gracie testified at the American inquiry that a "mass of humanity" from steerage poured up onto the boat deck only after all the boats had gone.
11. According to several writers and historians, indifference toward steerage passengers and resignation by many steerage passengers may have been more responsible for the low percentages of steerage passenger survival than physical barriers.
12. Walter Lord, in A Night To Remember, indicates that the White Star Line always denied class distinction in filling the boats, and that both US Senate and British inquiries backed them up.
13. A contempt for "foreigners" was admitted by the crew in their own testimony, especially when telling stories of men who showed cowardice. The testimony of one officer at the U.S. Senate hearing so angered the Italian ambassador he demanded (and received) a retraction and an apology.

WOMEN AND CHILDREN FIRST?

1. At least three of the four women in First Class who perished had the opportunity to board a lifeboat but elected to stay with their husbands and/or family. When they initially made their decisions, most passengers still believed that the Titanic would and could not sink.
2. Over half of the women in steerage perished.
3. A child was not clearly defined, and may have differed among classes. 14 year old Lucile Carter in First Class was considered a child, but a 14 year old Annie McGowan in Steerage was considered to be an adult. The only child in First Class to go down with the ship was Lorraine Allison. The Allison family was separated from their infant son. The Allisons refused to board a lifeboat until they could find their missing baby. Since the child's nurse had already been taken him on board a lifeboat, the family never found him and died together.
4. It may be statistically insignificant because of low numbers, but children from Second Class were the only members of a group to have a 100% survival rate.
5. Less than a third of the children from steerage survived.
6. Although half of the Irish women (defined as women boarding in Queenstown) survived, only one of the six Irish children survived (and I am including 14 year old Annie McGowan, whom some do not).

ADULT MALE PASSENGERS

1. A "Women and children only" rule was applied on the port side of the ship; a "Women and children first" rule was applied on the starboard.
2. Men in First Class had no better than a one in three chance of surviving, so compared to women, even women from steerage, they fared poorly.
3. Even though some men had no trouble boarding lifeboats, there was a report that the wealthiest man on the Titanic, John Jacob Astor, attempted to board the lifeboat with his wife, but was rebuffed by Second Officer Lightoller, who told him, "Women and children, only, sir." Other accounts are differ, however, including one that he was seated in a lifeboat, but gave up his seat at the last minute. Another is that Astor chose to stay behind to encourage William Carter to get on board, promising the boy that he would take care of his dog.
4. An adult male in Second Class had only an 8% chance of surviving. Even adult male steerage passengers had a better chance of surviving than that.
5. Men in Second Class had no physical barriers to pass, so honor and resignation may have reigned high. Also, as Lawrence Beesley, a Second Class passenger, reported in his 1912 book, The Loss of the SS Titanic, a false rumor that men were allowed to board lifeboats on the port side caused many men to cross over to the side of the ship where they had a much smaller chance of being allowed on board a lifeboat.
6. A high percentage of the men in steerage who got to lifeboats reached them only by leaping onto them after they were launched or by scrambled aboard the two emergency lifeboats as they floated off moments before the Titanic finally went down.

NATIONALITIES

1. Most official lists provide no breakdown by nationality beyond British and Non-British.
2. The numbers used above are adapted from a list of country of origin created by researcher Hermann Soldner.
3. Because of changing geographic borders in a century's time and a different geopolitical understanding, plus mistakes made in 1912, the figures are not precise or accurate. For example, although there is a designation for Finland, some Finns were counted among the Swedes. Peter Björkfors, in his Finns on the Titanic article, produces a different total than the list above. There were two Australians, but Australia was not considered to be a separate country. Many from Austria-Hungary, were neither Austrian nor Hungarian but ethnic Eastern Europeans. Turkey and Syria were both part of the Ottoman Empire, and most Middle Easterners, however they were listed, researchers indicate, were Lebanese Christians.

TITANIC CREW, EMPLOYEES, AND SERVANTS

1. The crew of the Titanic were divided into Deck Crew, Engineering Crew, and Victualling Crew. I have created my own employment category of Sailors to single out officers, able-bodied seamen, quartermasters, lookouts, and masters-at-arms from other members of the deck crew.
2. Seventy percent of the 60 sailors on board them survived. Many sailors (but only a few firemen and stewards) were commanded to take charge of lifeboats or to serve as rowers. It may have been the duty of the captain to go down with the ship, but that was not true for most other officers.
3. Other members of the deck crew were non-sailors. The non-sailing crew were 38% of those aboard the Titanic but only 25% of the survivors. Non-sailing crew members included trimmers, firemen, greasers, window cleaners, carpenters, messmen, engineers, stewards and stewardesses, bell boys, lift attendants, boots, baths, barbers, chefs, cooks, butchers, bakers, confectioners, platemen, scullions, medical staff, and a gymnasium instructor.
4. All 30 engineer and electrical engineers perished. They were true heroes who stayed down below until almost the end trying to keep the ship afloat and the electrical system working.
5. Some members of the Titanic's crew were not employees of the White Star line. These included nine Guarantee Group members (employees of the shipbuilder, Harland and Wolff, who were on board to familiarize the crew with the ship), eight musicians, two Marconi operators, five postal clerks, and the nearly seventy members of the staff of the First Class à la carte restaurant. This group had the worst rate of survival.
6. The musicians, who traveled in Second Class, and the Guarantee Group, three of whom traveled in First Class and five of whom in Second Class, plus Frans Olof Carlsson (who was the first mate on the liner St. Louis, but had been stranded by the coal strike and was traveling in First Class) are are included among passengers in some lists. I have included them with the crew. All were men; all perished.
7. Almost all of the à la carte restaurant workers were French. All but two were men. Both women, neither of whom were French, reached a lifeboat. Only one male restaurant worker survived.
8. As an indication of class distinction, the first official lists of Titanic passengers did not include the names of the maids and manservants who traveled with the First Class passengers. They were merely extensions of the passenger. For example, "Cardoza [sic], Mrs. J. W. M. and Maid."
9. The story quickly emerged that four maids died, trapped below deck, because they had been sent down to the purser's office to fetch their employers' valuables. In the first official lists, indeed, four maids are listed among those who perished, the maids of Mrs. Cardeza, Mrs. Douglas, Mrs. Hays, Mrs. Penasco y Castellana. Researcher Michael Findlay, however, has disproved the myth by documenting that all four of these women, Bertha LeRoy, Fermina Oliva y Ocana, Annie Perreault, and Anne Ward, survived. In fact, all female servants traveling in First and Second Class survived.
10. While maids, nurses, and valets traveled in First Class, three chauffeurs and a cook traveling with First Class passengers were given Second Class accommodations. The cook (a female) survived, but none of the chauffeurs (all male) did. I once read, but can't document, that one family traveling who was traveling in Second Class had a female servant traveling in Third Class. If so, this unfortunate woman would have been the only female servant among the passengers to perish with the Titanic.
11. Only two manservants survived. One was Henry Sleeper Harper's Egyptian dragoman (I had to look the word up; it's an interpreter) named Hamad Hassah, "whom he picked up in Cairo as a sort of a joke [according to Walter Lord]." The Harpers also brought on board the lifeboat their other "pet," a Pekingese, named Sun Yet-sen.

LIFEBOATS

1. Perhaps by custom rather than White Star Line policy, lifeboats were the luxury of the First Class. Half the lifeboats, and all of the first six launched, contained only passengers from First Class, plus crew members to do the work.
2. All of these early launched "First Class" lifeboats were notorious for being launched at less than half capacity. Two of the earliest launched lifeboats, 7 and 1, had more men than women aboard.
3. Especially early on, many if not most First and Second Class passengers believed that boarding a lifeboat was not wise or necessary and that the safer option would be to stay aboard the world's largest most luxurious lifeboat, the Titanic itself.. Dr. Washington Dodge reported that until the sixth or seventh lifeboat was launched (by which time no Second or Third Class passengers had been put aboard), there was no general awareness that the Titanic would sink. However, evidence is clear that the chief officers of the Titanic knew before the first lifeboat was launced that the Titanic would sink, but did not take measures to ensure that all boats were adequately filled.
4. Access was an issue. Only First Class passengers were allowed on the First Class deck. Lawrence Beesley, a surviving Second Class passenger, reported that several women in Second Class were turned away when they tried to enter the part of the deck reserved for First Class where half the lifeboats were located. Later, however, First Class passengers found their way to the lifeboats not located on the First Class deck.
5. Although lifeboat 4 picked up six or eight passengers from the water and D hauled in at least one man before they distanced themselves from the ship, the only lifeboat to go back to try to rescue people after the Titanic went under was 14, not a "First Class" lifeboat. It was only able to pick up three or four passengers from the water.

RESOURCES FOR TABULATING STATISTICS

Because of the nature of record keeping at the time, here is no entirely accurate source for Titanic statistics. I highly praise and recommend Michael Findlay and Philip Hind for their monumental efforts in compiling information, but some errors, mysteries, and inconsistencies related to any list of names can never be resolved.

1. My main source for compiling passenger statistics has been Titanic Passenger List, 10 April 1912, by Michael Findlay. Mr. Findlay is probably the world's leading authority, having spent years of much research tracking down individuals from around the world to produce his list. It can be found in two print sources that I know of. It is an appendix found in Titanic: Women and Children First, by Judith B. Geller (Norton, 1998) and Titanic: Triumph and Tragedy by John P. Eaton & Charles A. Haas (Patrick Stephens, 1994).
2. I have also extensively used Philip Hind's Encyclopedia Titanica, beginning when it was called R.M.S. Titanic: Her Passengers and Crew. Hind has also used Michael Findlay's list as a starting point and adapted and added to it, especially with biographical details. His is the best and almost only readily available source I know of for information about the Titanic's crew.
3. Walter Lord included as an appendix the passenger section of the White Star Line's final list of lost and saved, dated May 9, 1912 in his A Night To Remember (Henry Holt, 1955). The list was official, but it was full of errors.
4. Lists were also reported in the London Times in the days following the disaster. By April 20, the Times reproduced an official list supplied by the White Star Line. It differs in form and content from the list in A Night To Remember .
5. Colonel Archibald Gracie's The Truth about the Titanic (1913), reissued in 1985 under the title Titanic, A Survivor's Story, was the first published attempt to compile information about who was on which lifeboats. It is incomplete and for the most part ignores steerage passengers.
6. Titanic: A Tragic Destiny features a chronology and other information helpful in putting together the the lifeboat table
7. The Gulf of Maine Aquarium's Grave of the Titanic includes a chart of passengers by sex and class that was useful for comparison. The site wasn't around when I first compiled my statistics.
8. Titanic Inquiry Project provides the official transcripts of the inquiries made by both the British Board of Trade and the United States Senate. Thousands of pages are available and searchable.
9. Jay Henry Mowbray quickly wrote The Sinking of the Titanic and had it published in 1912. He was not a Titanic passenger, but he was able to include many narratives by passengers. I don't know how accurate his accounts are.
10. Titanic Historical Society includes some interesting information, even if it wasn't that helpful when I was compiling demographic information.

NOTE: The animated gif above, which depicts the sinking of the Titanic, is based on sketches by Jack Thayer, a Titanic survivor. The times provided are also based on information found on Jack's sketches -- they may not be accurate. Jack, who was 17 in 1912, drew the sketches while on board the Carpathian on April 15, the day the Titanic went down. He showed the Titanic breaking in two, which was not widely believed until after Robert Ballard's underwater team proved him right in 1985.