大象传媒

11 April 2012 Last updated at 04:16

In pictures: Marconi's Titanic radio room

A replica of the Titanic radio room can be seen at the Sandford Mill Museum in Chelmsford, Essex. The display, a scaled down version of the ship's room, features the Marconi broadcasting equipment that would have been used on the liner. It is part of the museum's Marconi collection.

The Bodleian Libraries at the University of Oxford has its own exhibition from 14 April to 13 May called Titanic Calling: Wireless Communications during the Great Disaster. It shows the messages that were sent from the ship during its doomed voyage, like this one from the Titanic's captain Edward Smith to the commander of the ocean liner RMS Baltic the day the Titanic struck the iceberg.

The broadcasting equipment used in the radio room on the Titanic was built in the Marconi factory in Hall Street, Chelmsford. It was operated by two Marconi employees, Harold Bride and John "Jack" Phillips, who sent the distress messages after the liner struck an iceberg.

Jack Philips, the senior operator on the Titanic, had just turned 25 when he perished during the disaster.

The radio room was used to send messages from ship to shore, many from passengers to their families back home. It also received news wires used to produce the ship's daily newspapers. Its final use was to call for help from passing ships as the Titanic began to sink.

This distress message on display in Oxford was sent from the Titanic to the captain of the RMS Celtic, which was another ocean liner owned by the shipping company that owned the Titanic, White Star Line. It gives the Titanic's position and reads: "Require assistance - struck iceberg."

A chart showing where and when ships crossing the Atlantic were to make contact with each other sits above the radio equipment in the reconstructed radio room. This would have been vital as Bride and Phillips called for help on the night of 14 April 1912.

This message was sent by a lady called Pattie on board the RMS Carpathia four days after the Titanic sank. It was sent to Mrs Healey, 29 Stoneby Drive, New Brighton, and said: "Titanic gone down, safe on Carpathia." RMS Carpathia was a transatlantic passenger steamship owned by the Cunard Line.

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Essex

In pictures: Marconi's Titanic radio room

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