RMS Titanic print by Rodney Charman
At noon on Wednesday, 10th April 1912, the White Star liner R.M.S. Titanic cast her lines from the White Star Dock and began what was to become the most famous maiden voyage in history.
With Captain Edward J. Smith on the bridge and towed by the tug ‘Neptune’, assisted by tugs ‘Hercules’, ‘Albert Edward’, ‘Hector’, ‘Ajax’ and ‘Vulcan’, the huge liner was manoeuvred into the River Test.
Rodney Charman has lived all his life near Southampton and has vivid memories of seeing the great liners ‘Queen Mary’, ‘Queen Elizabeth’ and ‘Mauretania’ from the trains that passed very close to the dry docks there. He also remembers “going on a passenger ferry to view the ‘SS United States’ as she arrived on her maiden voyage. I toured the ‘Queen Mary’ when she was at the Ocean Dock, as the White Star Dock was renamed, and have made a few voyages from Southampton Docks”.
Rodney’s painting shows the ‘Titanic’ as she is edged away from the dockside, the ‘Neptune’ towing and tugs ‘Albert Edward’, ‘Hercules’ and ‘Vulcan’ at her bow. On the left of the painting are the White Star liner ‘Majestic’, and the American Line steamers ‘Philadelphia’ and ‘St. Louis’, each in its day the greatest liner in the world, now dwarfed by the enormous ‘Titanic’. The three liners had had their voyages cancelled due to a coal strike, and their coal and many of their crew were transferred to the ‘Titanic’. In the background can be seen the Southwestern Hotel where many of the passengers stayed on the eve of the voyage.
This limited edition print of 850 is available in our webshop where you can also find more artworks from Rodney Charman.
August 7th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
RMS stands for “Royal Mail Ship”. if you look this up Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Mail_Ship it will tell you the following…
Royal Mail Ship (sometimes Steam-ship, Steamer), usually seen in its abbreviated form RMS, is the ship prefix used for seagoing vessels that carry mail under contract by Royal Mail. They have the right to fly the pennant of the Royal Mail when sailing.
The designation has been used since 1840. It was used by a large number of companies, but is often associated in particular with the Cunard line and Royal Mail Lines, which held a number of high-profile mail contract business, and which traditionally prefixed the titles of all its ships with the initials “RMS”. The best-known ship carrying the prefix is almost certainly the RMS Titanic of the White Star Line.
Technically, a ship would use the prefix only while contracted to carry mail, and would revert at other times to a standard type designation such as “SS”.
We have also often been asked by our overseas friends what “HMS” stands for. It is the designation for British warships and stands for “Her Majesty’s Ship”. Obviously, if a king is on the throne, the “Her” becomes “His”.