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Description: | The dining room was an extremely important room on the ship as it was where the ship's passengers were served their breakfast, lunch and dinner (or tea as it was called for third class passengers.)
There was a dining room allocated to each Cass, one being for Frst Cass passengers, towards the top of the ship. Another dining room was allocated to Second Class passengers towards the middle of the ship, and one was allocated towards the Third class, towards the bottom of the ship.
Like all other rooms on Olympic, they were decorated and designed differently according to class. The dining room for first class passengers were much more ornately decorated and much more comfortable than the second class dining room. The second class dining room likewise was much more comfortable and more attractive than the Third Class dining room.
This photograph of a Second Class dining room, looks rather like one in a hotel. It is spacious with a carefully decorated ceiling, beautiful decoration and a nice carpet. The chairs and tables were beautifully laid and very comfortable. All the tables in the room would of course be secured down to stop them from moving with the sea.
The dining room, like all rooms on board the ship, were so elegantly designed to give the illusion to the passengers on board that they were staying in a hotel on land, rather than a rocky ship, in the middle of the ocean. This was to make the customers feel much more comfortable.
The Second Class dining room like all the rooms on Olympic were designed very similarly to her sister ship's Titanic and Britannic.
The tables were only laid out with plates and knife and forks immediately before dinner by stewards. This was to limit the number of breakages, as stormy whether and a choppy sea could lead to crockery falling off the tables and breaking.
R.M.S Olympic was built at the Harland and wolff ship yard in Belfast, London at a cost of US $7,500,000. She was launched on October 20, 1910 and entered passenger service in 1911, serving the White Star Line. She served the North Atlantic route, sailing from Southampton Docks.
She was one of a trio of sister ships which were built at the beginning of the twentieth century. The others were called Titanic (1912) and Gigantic (later renamed Britannic) (1914). The sister ships were almost identical in design. R.M.S Olympic however could be distinguished by her open first class promenade. The first class promenade on Titanic and Britannic was partially closed. This was because modifications had been made to Titanic and Britannic (whom came into service later) after Olympic passengers complained of spray coming from the sea onto the promenade.
Unlike her other sister ships, R.M.S Olympic had a much more longer and successful life as a liner than her other sister ships. She served the North Atlantic route for the White Star Line until 1935, when she retired and was turned into scrap. When she went to the scrap yard parts of her interiors were taken out first and were sold to buyers all over the country. Some of her interiors can still be seen in peoples homes today. | Format: | image/jpeg | License: | http://www.sopse.org.uk/ixbin/hixclient.exe?a=query&p=gateway&f=generic_sitetext%2ehtm&_IXFIRST_=1&_IXMAXHITS_=1&cms_con_core_subtype%3acms_con_text_what=copyright&%3acms_sys_group=%22sopse%22 | Rights holder: | National Monuments Record (English Heritage) | Subjects: | passenger dining room Olympic White Star Line Second Class dining room ship's interior ocean liners Second Class | Temporal: | start=1910-10-20; end=1935-12-31; | Source: | Sense of place SE | Creator: | Copied by: National Monuments Record (English Heritage) | Identifier: | http://www.sopse.org.uk/ixbin/hixclient.... | Language: | en-GB | Format: | image/jpeg | Go to resource |
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