30 July 1912

What the court found

The court found that the loss of the ship was due to collision with an iceberg, brought about by the excessive speed at which the ship was being navigated.⁠¹

The formal investigation sat for 37 public days, examined 97 witnesses, and was conducted by Lord Mersey as Wreck Commissioner, with five assessors. Its report is the main official British record used on this site.

Captain Smith, Chief Officer Wilde, First Officer Murdoch and Sixth Officer Moody all went down with the ship while performing their duties, the inquiry records.⁠¹

The Californian

The inquiry says there appears to be no doubt that the vessel whose lights Boxhall saw was the Californian, and that the Californian heard none of Titanic’s messages: she had only one Marconi operator, and he was asleep.⁠¹

Boxhall, the inquiry says, was also using a Morse light from the bridge toward a ship whose lights he saw about half a point on the port bow, perhaps five or six miles off, and got no answer. The evidence from the Californian speaks of eight rockets having been seen between 12.30 and 1.40. We give the court’s own wording here, and we do not add a later argument of our own.

Boxhall began firing ordinary distress rockets from about the time No. 7 boat was lowered (12.45 a.m.) until he left the ship at about 1.45, about eight rockets in all.⁠¹

The recommendations that followed — boats for everybody, a 24-hour wireless watch, prudent navigation in ice — are part of the same report, and they changed the rules under which passenger ships were afterwards inspected.