Sea City Museum – Southampton

You’ve probably heard of the tragedy of the Titanic. You may have watched the film based on it. But do you know much more about this historical incident? Well, we didn’t and so that’s why we visited what was the highlight of the week for me – SeaCity Museum in Southampton.

Our first stop in the museum was the Titanic exhibition. It’s really well presented and a good chunk of it is about the time before the ship set off for New York, which was a change as you don’t normally find out about that. As you walk around, you also follow the stories of some of the crew – Captain Smith as well as a range of stewards, officers and coal trimmers. You learn about the huge amount of luggage stowed in the bows, the issues whilst it was sailing and how the events unfolded when the hull struck ice. It was moving, discovering how many lives were lost that day (a huge percentage of them Southampton citizens, where the ship began its voyage) and how easily the tragedy could have been avoided. But it was even more intriguing to listen to the court cases that followed and how some dodgy happenings, like how the Managing Director of the company owning Titanic ordered it to be sailed at full speed despite ice warnings, came out in the wash…

Next we headed into the section covering the history of Southampton, ranging from the Bronze Age era to the current 21^st century. A wide range of artifacts was on show and there were many displays of the city through time. And after spend so much time seeing Southampton in the past, it was very interesting seeing the city in its modern form when we stepped outside again.

By Amy