Salaries and Duties: Engine Room

There were two steam piston engines and a low pressure turbine that were serviced by 326 men in various functions: coal, electric power, greasers, trimmers, firemen, and engineers.

Engineers

Joseph Bell, as Chief Engineer, was inarguably the most important person on the ship because he was responsible for making sure the ship ran smoothly. He was assisted by the Senior Second Engineer William Farquharson.

Their income reflected the importance of their job. For Bell, he was paid a huge £35 and Farquharson was paid £22 per month.

Stoker (fireman) John Coffey deserted the ship when he got off at Queenstown.

In total there were 25 Engineers onboard and none survived.

Engine Room Workers

Most of these men worked in boiler rooms #2 and #6 because boiler room #1 wasn't operational in the first three days of the maiden voyage.

The job titles and descriptions came into question during the Board of Inquiry hearings in both the US and in Britain because many of the workers were not able to agree who they reported to and exactly what their jobs were because they didn't stick to their jobs; they helped each other out and did a little of everyone's work.

Frederick Woodford was a greaser on Titanic.  A greaser lubricated the ship's engines, and participated in three 4-hour watches.

The men were spread over four positions:

• 13 stoker foremen (lead firemen) - 3 survived

• 163 regular stokers (about 45 survived)

• 73 coal trimmers (about 20 survived)

• 33 greasers (4 survived)

Money values:

All crew were paid in British currency - pounds, shillings and pence.  
There were 20 shillings to a pound, 12 pence to 1 shilling, 240 pence to one pound.

The sinking of Titanic terminated each worker's contract so most weren't paid past April 15, 1912.



Conversion link - British pounds to US dollars.   In today's dollars, 1 British pound equals $1.28 US dollars. Use the link to convert pounds to dollars so you can see other crew salaries.  I have the converter set at £2 but you can change the number of pounds.