The Big Four still had connections to the _Titanic_ Disaster well into the 1920s: On the 11th of August, 1922, _Adriatic_ suffered a gas explosion in one of her reserve coal bunkers that killed five men, including _Titanic_ survivor Christopher Shulver.
Remember that well trained, seasoned crew were a valuable commodity. All of the crew of the Titanic was placed in similar positions or advanced in rank (officers) in other White Star ships. Titanic sank in 1912, but the careers of her surviving crew continued well into the 1920's. Olympic also received Titanic survivor crew and some were still aboard when she was sold and scrapped. It's a fascinating side story.
7:15 White Star's practice of providing private cabins to married couples and families actually began with Teutonic and Majestic, with the rest of the passengers berthed in 20-person dormitory style rooms. This practice carried over with Cymric and Oceanic, but Celtic broke the mold. At the forward end there were 600 berths in dormitory rooms, while the rest were quartered aft in two, four and six berth cabins. The forward berths were only used when the ship was fully booked, and the aft accommodation was divided into six sections, three on E Deck and three on F Deck, divided by watertight bulkheads. The forwardmost on each deck were commonly occupied by men, while women, married couples and families took the rest
My great grandfather, his sister and mother sailed on the Adriatic in Nov. 1907. The captain on that voyage was Captain Smith. Smith stayed with the Adriatic until the Olympic entered service.
I've always had a healthy respect for the Big Four, but I never knew that they lead such long, profitable, lucky and all around incredible lives. Wow. Heavily underrated they are. This was an especially good watch to get to know them better, so thanks for doing them justice as always. I'll try to catch up with your older videos when I can. :)
Wonderful history of the Big Four, thank you. My paternal grandmother & family emigrated to the U.S. aboard the R.M.S. Celtic from Cobh to Boston in August 1925 7 days, 7 hours & 42 minutes with an average speed of 15.67 knots. She said it wasn't the most pleasant journey. I have a nice little card with a picture of the Celtic & an abstract of the long . It's a wonderful memento.
1:02. Footage of the RMS Teutonic (1889) leaving New York Harbor in 1902. Her top speed was 20.5 knots or 23.6 miles per hour. Her fastest crossing was in August of 1891 when she made a westbound crossing in 5 days, 16 hours and 30 minutes.
I'm Irish and have been to the harland and Wolffe shipyard I know that it is known for the titanic but so many famous ships from different lines were built here even not so long ago and to queenstown and have looked out at the water the many ships that must of been seen there is amazing
This channel is so good. I love learning about these old, beautiful ocean liners. I LOVE going on cruises... but I wish I could have experienced first class on an ocean liner. Just to experience the refinement.
Try one of the smaller Cunard ships, Queen Victoria or Queen Elizabeth. They're more than twice the size of the Olympic class, but rather moderately sized by modern standards. They are obviously modern ships with modern facilitates, but they do have the rather stuffy formality of the olden days. They would be closest to what you are looking for.
@@Dave_Sisson I mean I wanna experience it, but I'd still rather spend that money on a cruise lol. I'm not actually going out looking for ocean liners to go on. But thanks :)
The Big Four were quite slow for large Atlantic liners, but shipbuilding is a game of tradeoffs. Assuming the price of the ticket is the same, would you rather cross the Atlantic on a slower, more comfortable ship or a faster, less comfortable ship?
Fast ships like the Lusitania and Normandie had very noticeable vibration in the aft portion (3rd class) of the ship. Slower ships like the RMS Olympic were preferred to the likes of RMS Mauritania.
@@diegoarias7774 Yes, vibration was a common issue especially on fast ships. A slower ship would be less likely to experience this, thus adding further to the comfort.
i agree great there max speed is only 17 knots kinda slow for a large ocean liner the older oceanic 2 was even faster than them is a max speed of 19 knots and the olympic class out ranked there speed of 21 knots i kinda agree with you great . also i think white star thinked that the lower the speed is the cheeper is to man the ship.
Just a note, the bent armed, tubular davits used on many ships from this time, are called radial davits. They were quite common, and lasted well into first half of the 20th Century.
I have been looking forward to this one. There's not a lot of talk about The Big Four and I honestly could have watched a much MUCH longer video about these ships.
I could have made this one longer, but that’s the case for all of my videos. I try to keep them to a manageable length for all audiences, but I encourage you to check out the sources (in the description) for more info
The Big Four looked to be floating art. Great use of B & W photos to help tell the story. We like your channel because you get to the point of the story and don't veer off course. Thanks for your time, work and posting.....
One of the best 'ship', documentaries, I've EVER seen!! I have heard of these ships, but they were not that well mentioned. UNTIL now! Excellently assembled, and informative! …………And on a humorous level, it's strange how a British ship, (the "Adriatic "), helped with the 'attack', on Pearl Harbor🤔. Whaaa? Possibly true! If you listen, @22:50, they talk about how they sold the scrap metal to Japan, in 1934 (just in time, huh)?
Amazing video! Just a suggestion, but I think it would be cool for you to make a video on the Cunard liners Campania and Lucania! They don’t get talked about too much.
One crucial part of the formula for the plan for the Big Four was the Cymric. She was the first of White Star's intermediate liners, entering service the year before Oceanic and later spending most of her career on the Liverpool to Boston service. She'd initially been designed as a livestock carrier with accommodation for 258 First Class passengers, so her smaller engines left more space for passenger accommodations. Later her design was changed and her livestock areas were replaced with accommodations for 1,160 Third Class passengers. Compared to Oceanic she sailed more smoothly, consumed less fuel and made for a bit more comfortable crossing
@@Ei_No agreed. Oceanic is my favorite. Her lines where a step up from the tuetonic class, and i think only the olympic class (WSL Ships) can match the Queen of the Sea lines
I happen to have the blueprints of the Adriatic, and I also have the blueprints to the half-sister Lapland that served for the red star line. Update: Now I got Suevic, Runic(Imo), Justicia, and Atlantic
@@bananacat4945 i'll just say I know some people, the blueprints are not the real physical copy but I have a massive collection of PDFs that are just blueprints of various ships, just so happens someone was kind enough to send me blueprints of one of the big four, and the half sister.
This Video was very informative, so thank you for putting your effort into it. I actually didn't knew that they had multiple refits and that they were white Stars testbed for the new Class System abord ships. But what I allready knew was the story about Cesar, when he was released from his captivity he managed to get the whole pirate crew located and killed afterwould because he was so pissed at them in case you didn't knew that allready.
I just love your work, so professional, excellent research, beautiful graphics but most importantly, the passion that goes into each episode. Many thanks for your enormous effort to make video like this.
I think I saw Don Lynch state somewhere that even though Adriatic was smaller than Lusitania and Mauretania, she still offered more passenger space per square foot than the two greyhounds.
Love it! Awesome view of a replica ship the 'Mayflower' at 6:08. I think that's the Mayflower. I need to get a poster made of this view. Wonderful video, I've never seen much of these clips Good job! I'm a model ship maker for a museum, 29 years. We have a 1/3rd scale model of the Mayflower, 27 feet long! Also a 30 foot model of the Queen Elizabeth and a 18 foot model of the QEll. Next year I'm to start building 15 new Ocean Liner models. Mostly 350th scale. Olympic and Maruatinia in their WW1 Dazzle paint schemes.
They are in storage but I have 2 wash stands, 2 wooden bunk sides, 4 wooden drawers (underneath one is written "radio room" in pencil and on the back of one of the wash stands is written "lavatory". I particularly love the idea of the drawer being from the radio room that exchanged messages with RMS Titanic.
According to Mark Chirnside’s book, the Big Four carried a combined 1,489,625 passengers over their careers. * Celtic - 357,286 passengers * Cedric - 335,357 passengers * Baltic - 460,962 passengers * Adriatic - 336,020 passengers
5:56. The exact fee was 1 shilling per person. 5,162 people visited Celtic on July 24, 1901, two days before her maiden voyage, meaning White Star raised a total of £258 and 2 shillings, the equivalent of £40,587.67 in 2023 or $51,205.40 USD in August 2023.
I also found out something not mentioned here. Baltic’s engines initially were not scaled up accordingly to her size increase over Celtic and Cedric, so she had a harder time maintaining a 16 knot service speed for the first few voyages until she was given larger engines by Harland and Wolff.
Also Celtic survived serious damage twice during her service as a troopship in WWI. On 15 February 1917, Celtic struck a mine laid by U-80 off the Isle of Man. 17 people were killed but Celtic stayed afloat. Then on 31 March 1918, Celtic was torpedoed twice by UB-77. 6 people were killed but again, Celtic stayed afloat.
Out of all ships planned for the North Atlantic, from any company and from any country, with multiple ships planned for the weekly service, I’m pretty sure only the big four actually ran as planned with all ships working together.
It certainly does seem that planned running mates rarely worked out. Partly bad luck and partly the nature of operating such large and complicated shipping operations.
@@TheGreatBigMove The Big Four carried almost 1.5 million combined passengers on just transatlantic crossings. Cruises undoubtedly added several thousand more to the total. * Celtic - 357,286, 499 crossings (249.5 round trips), average 716 per crossing * Cedric - 335,357, 514 crossings (257 round trips), average 652 per crossing * Baltic - 460,962, 625 crossings (312.5 round trips), average 738 per crossing * Adriatic - 336,020, 493 crossings (246.5 round trips), average 682 per crossing
I've read some of your comments and it seems like you know your stuff. Do you have any books you would recommend for me? I've read quite a few already, but always looking for more advanced sources. Feel free to send me an email (available if you click on my channel) if you'd prefer to chat there.
These 4 saw the Beginning of a New Century and they would meet their end nearly together as the world would go through one of its darkest times before a very dark moment in history would begin The Big Four truly deserve a lot of love for Journeys Together as The Group of Sisters who carried their company til its very end in 1934. While they may be scrapped, they will sail on in our hearts
I think it would have been worth mentioning the ordered but (due to the war) cancelled fifth ship of the class, the SS Germanic of 33,600 GRT ordered in April 1914.
It would be interesting to do some videos talking about how long some of the more popular ships were in service, by talking about the oldest ships in service when they started and the newest ship in service when they were sent to the breakers… especially on ships like Olympic that had such a long service life.
You don't ever have to thank us for watching brother, we are fans of yours and we watch because we love the videos and your content. But you're very welcome and we appreciate your efforts!
Short anwser on that is to break up the silhouettes of Ships to the point were they aren't identfyable anymore. The Great Big Move gave a wonderful example for that in this very Video at 16:42. You can see very clearly that the silhouette of the Ships is broken to the part that you would not be able to tell if this would be one or two ships from 2 Miles away. Hope that gave you a little insight :)
Just searched it. Natal is the namesake of the province I live in in south Africa. I see that it had connections to the north of my province. Very interesting read. Thank you for giving that suggestion.
@@DiabolikalRA I do enjoy your channel. :) I'm restoring an old house on the high street in Invergordon and will be able to see the Natal gardens (built in it's memory) from my upstairs windows - when I get them uncovered......
Was "Celtic" pronounced that way, like the backetball team? Or with a hard C like the language family (that both Irish and Gaelic, as well as Welsh belong to)?
They sound as if they were the true workhorses of the White Star Line for the first 30 years or so of the 20th Century and didnt have to be the biggest nor the fastest to do it. At least they weren't as "cursed" as the Olympic Class ships. Glad to hear some history on these ships.
Interestingly, the decision to dispose of the remaining members of the Big Four came just before the White Star-Cunard merger. The metric used to decide which company would absorb the other was size of fleets. Disposing of the remaining three of the Big Four put White Star just under Cunard in number of ships, so led to Cunard absorbing White Star.
Celtic’s net tonnage was 13,449 tons, an increase of 92 percent over Oceanic’s 6,996 net tonnage. This is also why Celtic could carry 2,859 passengers compared to Oceanic’s 1,710 passengers (a 67 percent increase).
Charles lightoller said once upon a time it was his dream to serve on the Celtic. By 1920 when his wish came true Celtic was obsolete and lightoller was overqualified to serve as chief officer on an obsolete ship which is why he left white star after being denied a transfer to the lines better ships.
@@CJODell12 were those all coal fired steam or oil fired?? And I have to ask why did they not have wood fired steamships like trains have wood, coal, and oil fired steam engines?
Caesar's ransom: The ransom Caesar insisted on was 50 talents of silver, not 50 pieces. A talent is a weight measure which would be about 1500 KG of silver, which would likely exceed 1.5 million USD
They remind us of these camcorders we used in a video production class we took in the '90s. They were quite fugly but they rugged as all smeg and thus got the job done better than the 'pretty' camcorder we wanted to use but never got to sign out for. Didn't help that it got crackleponied by another student. If given a time machine and money to spend, we would've loved to have converted them to motorliners and gut-rehabbed them with a decent lido deck (with outdoor pools) so if the Depression hit (was there even a way to prevent that?), they could double as cruise ships. Then we'd invite Hitler and Stalin aboard for a free cruise, get them piss drunk, slip 'em some rufies and 'accidentally' them overboard. Whoops...
Oceanic could carry a total of 1,710 passengers (410 first, 300 second, 1,000 third), which is less than what the Big Four could carry in third class alone (1,900 to 2,350)
Idk why ocean liners and ships are so interesting but they are
Say the with Levi lol
@@daze00k what😐
Ocean linera are ships
@@rodrigolefever2426 I meant other types of ships like sail ships etc
@@colorad6018 huh you is ?
The Big Four still had connections to the _Titanic_ Disaster well into the 1920s: On the 11th of August, 1922, _Adriatic_ suffered a gas explosion in one of her reserve coal bunkers that killed five men, including _Titanic_ survivor Christopher Shulver.
Huh, I did not know that.
this is some cursed final destination stuff.
Interesting
@@pelsckopolesk no I wouldn’t say it’s cursed
Remember that well trained, seasoned crew were a valuable commodity. All of the crew of the Titanic was placed in similar positions or advanced in rank (officers) in other White Star ships. Titanic sank in 1912, but the careers of her surviving crew continued well into the 1920's. Olympic also received Titanic survivor crew and some were still aboard when she was sold and scrapped. It's a fascinating side story.
The Big Four ships honestly,are quite great in what they achieved and what they did. Its amazing,really.
7:15 White Star's practice of providing private cabins to married couples and families actually began with Teutonic and Majestic, with the rest of the passengers berthed in 20-person dormitory style rooms. This practice carried over with Cymric and Oceanic, but Celtic broke the mold. At the forward end there were 600 berths in dormitory rooms, while the rest were quartered aft in two, four and six berth cabins. The forward berths were only used when the ship was fully booked, and the aft accommodation was divided into six sections, three on E Deck and three on F Deck, divided by watertight bulkheads. The forwardmost on each deck were commonly occupied by men, while women, married couples and families took the rest
i thought it was single men in the front, families and couples in the middle, and single women in the back. idk though.
@@jamespostle6894 Yes the dormitory rooms in the bow were occupied by the single men. While single women, married couples, and families had cabins.
My great grandfather, his sister and mother sailed on the Adriatic in Nov. 1907. The captain on that voyage was Captain Smith. Smith stayed with the Adriatic until the Olympic entered service.
Very very interesting
Wow-
I never knew about captain smith staying with the adriatic! i only knew him because of the titanic
In a loving memory of the RMS Celtic, RMS Cedric, RMS Baltic and RMS Adriatic
I've always had a healthy respect for the Big Four, but I never knew that they lead such long, profitable, lucky and all around incredible lives. Wow. Heavily underrated they are. This was an especially good watch to get to know them better, so thanks for doing them justice as always. I'll try to catch up with your older videos when I can. :)
6:53 that pun absolutely made my day
pun?
Interesting how such game changing ships that helped revolutionize the industry are now all but forgotten.
Wonderful history of the Big Four, thank you. My paternal grandmother & family emigrated to the U.S. aboard the R.M.S. Celtic from Cobh to Boston in August 1925 7 days, 7 hours & 42 minutes with an average speed of 15.67 knots. She said it wasn't the most pleasant journey. I have a nice little card with a picture of the Celtic & an abstract of the long . It's a wonderful memento.
1:02. Footage of the RMS Teutonic (1889) leaving New York Harbor in 1902. Her top speed was 20.5 knots or 23.6 miles per hour. Her fastest crossing was in August of 1891 when she made a westbound crossing in 5 days, 16 hours and 30 minutes.
By far one of my favorite ship classes. Adriatic was so incredible
I'm Irish and have been to the harland and Wolffe shipyard I know that it is known for the titanic but so many famous ships from different lines were built here even not so long ago and to queenstown and have looked out at the water the many ships that must of been seen there is amazing
This channel is so good. I love learning about these old, beautiful ocean liners.
I LOVE going on cruises... but I wish I could have experienced first class on an ocean liner. Just to experience the refinement.
Try one of the smaller Cunard ships, Queen Victoria or Queen Elizabeth. They're more than twice the size of the Olympic class, but rather moderately sized by modern standards. They are obviously modern ships with modern facilitates, but they do have the rather stuffy formality of the olden days. They would be closest to what you are looking for.
@@Dave_Sisson I mean I wanna experience it, but I'd still rather spend that money on a cruise lol. I'm not actually going out looking for ocean liners to go on. But thanks :)
I love how you describe the ships so well you don’t even have to look at the video! You can just listen and it all makes sense.
The Big Four were quite slow for large Atlantic liners, but shipbuilding is a game of tradeoffs. Assuming the price of the ticket is the same, would you rather cross the Atlantic on a slower, more comfortable ship or a faster, less comfortable ship?
Fast ships like the Lusitania and Normandie had very noticeable vibration in the aft portion (3rd class) of the ship. Slower ships like the RMS Olympic were preferred to the likes of RMS Mauritania.
Hmm probs a faster ship
Slower because the journey is half the adventure of travelling.
@@diegoarias7774 Yes, vibration was a common issue especially on fast ships. A slower ship would be less likely to experience this, thus adding further to the comfort.
i agree great there max speed is only 17 knots kinda slow for a large ocean liner the older oceanic 2 was even faster than them is a max speed of 19 knots and the olympic class out ranked there speed of 21 knots i kinda agree with you great .
also i think white star thinked that the lower the speed is the cheeper is to man the ship.
I honestly really enjoy this content, and only a "small" group of people know about this channel, everybody share these vids!
Yes, please share with your friends and on social media. It's the best way to support the channel.
Just a note, the bent armed, tubular davits used on many ships from this time, are called radial davits. They were quite common, and lasted well into first half of the 20th Century.
I have been looking forward to this one. There's not a lot of talk about The Big Four and I honestly could have watched a much MUCH longer video about these ships.
I could have made this one longer, but that’s the case for all of my videos. I try to keep them to a manageable length for all audiences, but I encourage you to check out the sources (in the description) for more info
The Big Four looked to be floating art. Great use of B & W photos to help tell the story. We like your channel because you get to the point of the story and don't veer off course. Thanks for your time, work and posting.....
One of the best 'ship', documentaries, I've EVER seen!! I have heard of these ships, but they were not that well mentioned. UNTIL now! Excellently assembled, and informative!
…………And on a humorous level, it's strange how a British ship, (the "Adriatic "), helped with the 'attack', on Pearl Harbor🤔. Whaaa? Possibly true! If you listen, @22:50, they talk about how they sold the scrap metal to Japan, in 1934 (just in time, huh)?
Amazing video! Just a suggestion, but I think it would be cool for you to make a video on the Cunard liners Campania and Lucania! They don’t get talked about too much.
Great suggestion! I have been wanting to do exactly that. Stay tuned and hopefully I'll get to it.
One crucial part of the formula for the plan for the Big Four was the Cymric. She was the first of White Star's intermediate liners, entering service the year before Oceanic and later spending most of her career on the Liverpool to Boston service. She'd initially been designed as a livestock carrier with accommodation for 258 First Class passengers, so her smaller engines left more space for passenger accommodations. Later her design was changed and her livestock areas were replaced with accommodations for 1,160 Third Class passengers. Compared to Oceanic she sailed more smoothly, consumed less fuel and made for a bit more comfortable crossing
Literally cattle class!
An amazing ship class, just wish they were more similar to the 1899 Oceanic. She is truly beautiful!
Agreed, the island bridge is weird
@@EternalModerate they would look so much better if the superstructure was one continuous structure
@@Ei_No agreed. Oceanic is my favorite. Her lines where a step up from the tuetonic class, and i think only the olympic class (WSL Ships) can match the Queen of the Sea lines
I happen to have the blueprints of the Adriatic, and I also have the blueprints to the half-sister Lapland that served for the red star line.
Update: Now I got Suevic, Runic(Imo), Justicia, and Atlantic
hello friend : )
That's awesome
nice one
wow! is it okay if I ask you how you acquired them?
@@bananacat4945 i'll just say I know some people, the blueprints are not the real physical copy but I have a massive collection of PDFs that are just blueprints of various ships, just so happens someone was kind enough to send me blueprints of one of the big four, and the half sister.
This Video was very informative, so thank you for putting your effort into it. I actually didn't knew that they had multiple refits and that they were white Stars testbed for the new Class System abord ships. But what I allready knew was the story about Cesar, when he was released from his captivity he managed to get the whole pirate crew located and killed afterwould because he was so pissed at them in case you didn't knew that allready.
I’m new to the channel but absolutely hooked already from the content
Always wanted to look inside those pre 1912 ships.
Fantastic video! You did a wonderful tribute to these four ladies. Thank you!
Thank you, Todd!
I just love your work, so professional, excellent research, beautiful graphics but most importantly, the passion that goes into each episode. Many thanks for your enormous effort to make video like this.
just fine work here chimes in with everything ive come across in 50 yrs of study. fine compliment to mark chirnsides volume of these 4 sisters.
This is THE BEST video about the big four on TH-cam. Very good work!
The big four is my fav class of ships I just wished at least one of them where still here today
I think I saw Don Lynch state somewhere that even though Adriatic was smaller than Lusitania and Mauretania, she still offered more passenger space per square foot than the two greyhounds.
Love it! Awesome view of a replica ship the 'Mayflower' at 6:08. I think that's the Mayflower. I need to get a poster made of this view. Wonderful video, I've never seen much of these clips Good job! I'm a model ship maker for a museum, 29 years. We have a 1/3rd scale model of the Mayflower, 27 feet long! Also a 30 foot model of the Queen Elizabeth and a 18 foot model of the QEll. Next year I'm to start building 15 new Ocean Liner models. Mostly 350th scale. Olympic and Maruatinia in their WW1 Dazzle paint schemes.
I'm proud to own some furnishings from the Celtic. Great video.
That’s awesome, what do you have?
They are in storage but I have 2 wash stands, 2 wooden bunk sides, 4 wooden drawers (underneath one is written "radio room" in pencil and on the back of one of the wash stands is written "lavatory". I particularly love the idea of the drawer being from the radio room that exchanged messages with RMS Titanic.
I have a suggestion. The paddle steamer waverley. The ship has such a interesting history, i think its perfect for your channel.
4:00 wow so Celtic could carry about 300 more passengers than any of the Olympic class liners
Yay thanks for making a video about late 19th century and 20th century ocean liners!
Well, they really were the most successful ones.
I can't wait to see this video!
According to Mark Chirnside’s book, the Big Four carried a combined 1,489,625 passengers over their careers.
* Celtic - 357,286 passengers
* Cedric - 335,357 passengers
* Baltic - 460,962 passengers
* Adriatic - 336,020 passengers
Excellent video! I really enjoyed this.
Thanks, Johanna!
The real workhorses of the White Star Line.
5:56. The exact fee was 1 shilling per person. 5,162 people visited Celtic on July 24, 1901, two days before her maiden voyage, meaning White Star raised a total of £258 and 2 shillings, the equivalent of £40,587.67 in 2023 or $51,205.40 USD in August 2023.
I also found out something not mentioned here. Baltic’s engines initially were not scaled up accordingly to her size increase over Celtic and Cedric, so she had a harder time maintaining a 16 knot service speed for the first few voyages until she was given larger engines by Harland and Wolff.
Could you maybe do a Video about the important Harbours of that era Hoboken Liverpool Southhampten etc? Thanks a lot
Very informative👌🏻 thx
I would of wanted to see all 4 drag race thru the atlantic. That would be bad ass
Also Celtic survived serious damage twice during her service as a troopship in WWI. On 15 February 1917, Celtic struck a mine laid by U-80 off the Isle of Man. 17 people were killed but Celtic stayed afloat. Then on 31 March 1918, Celtic was torpedoed twice by UB-77. 6 people were killed but again, Celtic stayed afloat.
Out of all ships planned for the North Atlantic, from any company and from any country, with multiple ships planned for the weekly service, I’m pretty sure only the big four actually ran as planned with all ships working together.
It certainly does seem that planned running mates rarely worked out. Partly bad luck and partly the nature of operating such large and complicated shipping operations.
@@TheGreatBigMove
The Big Four carried almost 1.5 million combined passengers on just transatlantic crossings. Cruises undoubtedly added several thousand more to the total.
* Celtic - 357,286, 499 crossings (249.5 round trips), average 716 per crossing
* Cedric - 335,357, 514 crossings (257 round trips), average 652 per crossing
* Baltic - 460,962, 625 crossings (312.5 round trips), average 738 per crossing
* Adriatic - 336,020, 493 crossings (246.5 round trips), average 682 per crossing
I'm also a historian on the White Star Line, with a main focus on the company's impact on late 19th and early 20th century immigration
I've read some of your comments and it seems like you know your stuff. Do you have any books you would recommend for me? I've read quite a few already, but always looking for more advanced sources. Feel free to send me an email (available if you click on my channel) if you'd prefer to chat there.
Sounds like the Big Four and Olympic (Old Reliable) where the real workhorses of the White Star fleet.
So Ready!!!!!
Fantástico video 👏🏻👏🏻
Great video! Ty
Didn’t even know about them… Very interesting! Great Video!
These 4 saw the Beginning of a New Century and they would meet their end nearly together as the world would go through one of its darkest times before a very dark moment in history would begin
The Big Four truly deserve a lot of love for Journeys Together as The Group of Sisters who carried their company til its very end in 1934. While they may be scrapped, they will sail on in our hearts
Out of all the Big Four ships I’d want to sail first class on Adriatic the most. Especially during one of her winter cruises in the Mediterranean.
I think it would have been worth mentioning the ordered but (due to the war) cancelled fifth ship of the class, the SS Germanic of 33,600 GRT ordered in April 1914.
It would be interesting to do some videos talking about how long some of the more popular ships were in service, by talking about the oldest ships in service when they started and the newest ship in service when they were sent to the breakers… especially on ships like Olympic that had such a long service life.
That is an interesting idea. I’ll think about that.
Its interesting that White Star preferred 4 ships fleets compared to Cunard that tended to build a succession of pairs.
Really enjoy this channel
The size of these ships is breathtaking
Indeed.
Certainly.
the big four are by far, the most financial successfully ocean liner class EVER.
Hm, I suppose that that's possible but would be difficult to verify.
You don't ever have to thank us for watching brother, we are fans of yours and we watch because we love the videos and your content. But you're very welcome and we appreciate your efforts!
That was excellent - thank you
PS, I'd love to know more about dazzle paint on ww1 ships
I’ll think about doing that
Short anwser on that is to break up the silhouettes of Ships to the point were they aren't identfyable anymore. The Great Big Move gave a wonderful example for that in this very Video at 16:42. You can see very clearly that the silhouette of the Ships is broken to the part that you would not be able to tell if this would be one or two ships from 2 Miles away.
Hope that gave you a little insight :)
Have you done the HMS Natal which sank in Invergordon harbour in Scotland after a HUGE explosion during an onboard party?
Just searched it.
Natal is the namesake of the province I live in in south Africa.
I see that it had connections to the north of my province.
Very interesting read. Thank you for giving that suggestion.
@@DiabolikalRA I do enjoy your channel. :) I'm restoring an old house on the high street in Invergordon and will be able to see the Natal gardens (built in it's memory) from my upstairs windows - when I get them uncovered......
Was "Celtic" pronounced that way, like the backetball team? Or with a hard C like the language family (that both Irish and Gaelic, as well as Welsh belong to)?
Hard "K," not soft "C"!
That's how the ship's name is pronounced in the UK.
The Adriatic is my favorite ocean liner of all time simply because of how luxurious the design is
Adriatic is at least in my Top 10, maybe even Top 5, partly because she was the immediate forerunner to the Olympic.
Could you make a video about the United States Line’s earlier ships?
Yes, I plan to at some point.
They sound as if they were the true workhorses of the White Star Line for the first 30 years or so of the 20th Century and didnt have to be the biggest nor the fastest to do it. At least they weren't as "cursed" as the Olympic Class ships. Glad to hear some history on these ships.
They were the first British liners to have Third Class capacities of over 2,000.
Interestingly, the decision to dispose of the remaining members of the Big Four came just before the White Star-Cunard merger. The metric used to decide which company would absorb the other was size of fleets. Disposing of the remaining three of the Big Four put White Star just under Cunard in number of ships, so led to Cunard absorbing White Star.
Cunard had 15 ships and White Star had 10 at the time of the merger. Adriatic was withdrawn in September 1934, a few months after the merger.
Celtic’s net tonnage was 13,449 tons, an increase of 92 percent over Oceanic’s 6,996 net tonnage. This is also why Celtic could carry 2,859 passengers compared to Oceanic’s 1,710 passengers (a 67 percent increase).
I don't think you mentioned it but the RMS Adriatic was the first ocean liner to have an indoor swimming pool and a Turkish steam bath onboard.
I think I did, but either way that is correct.
@@TheGreatBigMove After rewatching the video, I see you did mention it after all. My mistake.
@@TheGreatBigMove Again my bad for not remembering
Charles lightoller said once upon a time it was his dream to serve on the Celtic. By 1920 when his wish came true Celtic was obsolete and lightoller was overqualified to serve as chief officer on an obsolete ship which is why he left white star after being denied a transfer to the lines better ships.
Never clicked on a notification this fast.
In the video photo, what were those four ocean liners steam powered there for the white stars most successful ships?
Celtic, Cedric, Baltic and Adriatic, the aforementioned Big Four
@@CJODell12 were those all coal fired steam or oil fired?? And I have to ask why did they not have wood fired steamships like trains have wood, coal, and oil fired steam engines?
@@alternative890 They were all coal fired
@@CJODell12 awesome did they have dog warning whistles that sound like a tuba sound??
wait is that POLISH TUGBOAT THAT'S IN FRONT OF SHIP !?!?!?!? 17:40
Learned a lot from this, thank you! ❤️
Would you be interested in talking about air combat in WWI? I think it would be an interesting video idea!
No one called out the pun:
The Piano was noteworthy 6:53
Caesar's ransom: The ransom Caesar insisted on was 50 talents of silver, not 50 pieces. A talent is a weight measure which would be about 1500 KG of silver, which would likely exceed 1.5 million USD
Can you do a video about Britannic (1874)
9:41 So, did the front fell off?
They remind us of these camcorders we used in a video production class we took in the '90s. They were quite fugly but they rugged as all smeg and thus got the job done better than the 'pretty' camcorder we wanted to use but never got to sign out for. Didn't help that it got crackleponied by another student.
If given a time machine and money to spend, we would've loved to have converted them to motorliners and gut-rehabbed them with a decent lido deck (with outdoor pools) so if the Depression hit (was there even a way to prevent that?), they could double as cruise ships. Then we'd invite Hitler and Stalin aboard for a free cruise, get them piss drunk, slip 'em some rufies and 'accidentally' them overboard. Whoops...
I’ve heard of the big four but I don’t know anything about them
I know that
I found out not long ago that a distant relative was on the Adriatic in first class
1:44
*Nice*
Never knew that.. wow.
The Big Four are very interesting ships for sure, but why did they have an island bridge?
To allow for access to the cargo hatch that lay between the main superstructure and the bridge house. It's also why the four ships had four masts.
@@cunard61 thank you for the explanation👍🏻
*apples to apples... But Terrific video nonetheless!
These ships, which were built in the late 1890's to the early 1900's lasted longer than any olympic class liner.
Oceanic could carry a total of 1,710 passengers (410 first, 300 second, 1,000 third), which is less than what the Big Four could carry in third class alone (1,900 to 2,350)
1:44
nice
it was the smaller but similar looking Lapland of red star line that took home titanic's crew
I hope they rebuild The Big Four again
9:51. Baltic’s rescue of the Republic’s passengers.
why did the separate the bridge, pilot house from the rest of the superstructure of the ship? I find it breaks up the nice lines and balance...
It was actually a common trend with H&W built ships at the time. Oceanic was more an exception to the rule than the norm.
Can you make a video about uss cyclops