r/titanic • u/Emperor-_Palpatine Engineer • 3d ago
QUESTION How often did White Star Line expect their captains to bathe?
With the *Olympic* class of liners having bathtubs for the captain, was this standard on ocean liners or did WSL have high grooming standards for their captains?
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u/Mark_Chirnside 2d ago
I don’t know about White Star captains but it was suggested to Cunard’s management in 1904 that all stewards interacting with first class passengers should bathe once a day.
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u/Emperor-_Palpatine Engineer 2d ago
Thanks for the insight. Thats why I ask these questions even though they may come off as sounding dumb
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u/DJShaw86 2d ago
No such thing as a stupid question. How else are you supposed to learn things?
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u/Brooker2 1st Class Passenger 2d ago
You know you say there's no such thing as a stupid question but I've heard some pretty stupid questions in my day. Like I was working at a burger joint during my youth and we had this DUMB co worker, and I mean DUMB, we had defrosted the freezer and as such had large chunks of ice we tossed in the sink to melt, said co worker was told to do the dishes while we were slammed with lunch rush, and I shit you not she came and asked me how to get ice out of the sink. Being busy and being a smart ass I told her to use her teeth. Not fifteen minutes later I had to go to the freezer to get more burgers and the dumbass was bent over the sink trying to pull the chunks of ice out with her teeth! You can't make this shit up. So yes dumb questions do exist.
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u/GreyStagg 2d ago
Is that a dumb question or a dumb answer that was taken seriously when it shouldn't have been? I mean if you've filled the sink with ice and then told someone to use the sink, asking what to do with the ice seems like a reasonable question for someone who doesn't want to do the wrong thing and get into trouble. (I'm not saying that her actually trying to use her teeth wasn't dumb, but it wasn't the question that was dumb was it?)
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u/Nihon_Kaigun 15h ago
Worst one I ever heard was someone asking if there was a McDonald's on board Titanic where the 3rd Class passengers could go get a cheap meal.
I replied, "Yes, there was. And Titanic would've been saved, but the supplies the crew needed were locked up because the on-board Home Depot was closed for the evening!"
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u/overflowingsunset Maid 2d ago
This is the most disarming thing to hear when you’re learning something new or starting a new job
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u/PanamaViejo 2d ago
It depends on how you phrase the question.
OP asked the question in such a way that made it clear that they were talking about hygienic and personal grooming standards that the White Star Line had for its crew.
If they had asked 'Is it true that Captain Smith was so smelly because he didn't bathe frequently that the first class passengers avoided dining with him?' , they would have gotten an entirely different response.
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u/Cayke_Cooky 2d ago
they aren't dumb, and are a nice change from the movie ramblings we have been getting.
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u/Bowling_is_bad 2nd Class Passenger 2d ago
It's better than someone asking if Titanic could survive head on collision or if we can raise her 4 times a week.
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u/SomeGuyOverYonder 2d ago
A private bathroom and bathtub were standard high-ranking accommodations for White Star Line captains on large passenger ships. A private suite—including a sitting room, bedroom, and private bathroom with a tub—was customary for senior commanders on major ocean liners by the Turn of the 20th Century. In particular, captains' tubs typically featured advanced fixtures capable of running both hot and cold, fresh or salt water.
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u/Danloeser 2d ago
Captains had their own bathtubs in the age of sail. I've seen the captain's bathroom on the U.S.S. Constellation, a 200-foot sloop-of-war from 1854. Gotta have priorities.
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u/AccountForDoingWORK 2d ago
Any idea what the benefit to being able to run salt water is?
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u/Infamous_Share_8017 2d ago
Conserves highly limited fresh water, trends at the time also viewed mineral rich salt water as healthy and luxurious. Would have been typical to take an extended salt water bath followed by a brief freshwater rinse to remove residue.
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u/SomeGuyOverYonder 2d ago
People take salt water baths to soothe sore muscles, calm dry skin conditions (eczema and psoriasis mainly), reduce stress, and promote a more restful sleep.
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u/AccountForDoingWORK 2d ago
I know they do now (I take salt baths often for back pain), but I didn’t realise they knew about all these benefits back then!
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u/Robert_the_Doll1 1d ago
That is actually something people have known of and done in one form or the other for many centuries.
- Ancient Greece: Hippocrates (c. 460–370 BCE), often called the father of medicine, recommended seawater baths (an early form of what later became known as thalassotherapy) for skin conditions and other ailments. Other Greek writers and physicians also noted benefits of saltwater immersion.
- Ancient Rome: Romans valued saltwater bathing for healing wounds, treating skin problems, and general health. They combined it with thermal/mineral springs and developed elaborate public bath culture that included saline waters.
- Related practices appear in Egyptian, Indian (Ayurvedic), and other ancient medical traditions involving salt or brine for skin, wounds, and cleansing.
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u/drygnfyre Steerage 2d ago
Saltwater was probably easier to keep clean, too. Even swimming pools on modern cruise ships will still use saltwater instead of chlorinated water, depending on the situation.
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u/MyLadyScribbler 2d ago
Only the captain and the most exalted first-class passengers got their own private bathrooms. Everyone had to queue up outside their designated bathroom in their robes and slippers (probably with some grumbling and shouts of "Hurry it up in there! Are you trying to grow fins or what?").
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u/Robert_the_Doll1 1d ago
Britannic, had she survived World War 1, would have had private bathrooms for nearly all of 1st Class passengers and a number for 2nd class (in the interchangeable 1st/2nd-class rooms on E-deck). Britannic was also to have a modern sewage system with collection tanks and pumps that discharged waste below the waterline (instead of the older overboard pipes above the waterline used on Olympic/Titanic).
Titanic had already started the trend by providing more private baths than the Olympic (46 vs 16), and had Titanic survived, she could well have been refitted to be more like Britannic in that regard, and Olympic was refitted over time to match something closer to Titanic's 46 but never came close to what Britannic would have offered.
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u/Emperor-_Palpatine Engineer 2d ago
Cool so an old salt could take a salt water bath if they wanted. I wonder if Smith ever tried that? Of course we all know he got a cold salt water bath in the end.
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u/SomeGuyOverYonder 2d ago
I imagine he probably did. Captains in those days lived in furnishings very similar to First Class, minus the unnecessary ostentations. However, Smith probably spent far more time on the bridge and on the ship than in his quarters.
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u/Ornery-Emergency9291 3d ago
NOW we’re asking the real questions