Thomas Andrews did not design Titanic or her sister ships Olympic and Britannic.
The man who deserves credit for the design is Alexander Carlisle. So why, when so much is written and talked about Titanic has this misassumption continued? The answer lies partly in the power of film.
In 1958 Walter Lord’s best seller ‘A Night to Remember’ about the disaster was turned into a feature film. The screenplay, outside of the author’s control, featured a degree of dramatic license in order to increase the impact of the story.
The first of these dramatizations was the launch of Titanic—the White Star Line held no formal naming ceremony for their steamships—yet in the film a lady names the vessel and breaks a bottle of champagne over the bows.
Similar creative license was applied to Thomas Andrews’ characterization as the ‘designer’, a portrayal further reinforced by James Cameron’s blockbuster film.
Thomas Andrews’ involvement from July onwards was to take up where Carlisle had left off in the management of a project where the major design decisions had been completed several years before.
None of this truth takes anything away from the reputation of Thomas Andrews; he was a brave man and did his duty; he died helping others and his name is rightly honored, but he does not deserve credit for ‘designing’ the Olympic-class liners—that honor belongs to Alexander Carlisle.
Here the starboard profile of the builder's model, without case, identified on the negative as OLYMPIC and TITANIC, but as OLYMPIC on the model.
Follow and support the refurbishment and construction of the NYC Titanic Memorial Lighthouse & Gardens.
Planned unveiling on the 110th anniversary, April 15, 2022.
titaniclighthouse.org
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