Southampton's Titanic Story
The crew, not the passengers: recorded testimony, original objects and a display that places the crew in their homes street by street.
Four in five of the Titanic's crew lived in Southampton, and when the ship went down in April 1912 more than five hundred households in this one city lost someone. That is the story SeaCity tells: not the millionaires in first class or the film, but the stokers, stewards and cooks who walked from the surrounding streets to the docks and never came back. The museum opened on 10 April 2012, a century to the day after the ship sailed, inside the old magistrates' court and police station wing of the Civic Centre, and the courtroom has been kept as it was so that scenes from the British inquiry into the disaster can be played out in the room where justice was once done. The Southampton's Titanic Story gallery is the whole reason to come: a large interactive model of the ship, recorded testimony from local people, original objects from on board, and two hands-on set pieces that children go straight for, one where you steer the ship from a virtual wheel and another where you shovel coal into the boilers. Then you reach the display that places the crew in their homes street by street, and the room goes quiet, adults and children alike. A roof light frames the Civic Centre clock tower as a yardstick for the ship's length, a clever touch that conveys the scale without a single number. The rest, the Gateway to the World gallery on 200,000 years of the port from Roman traders to the modern docks, with its seven-metre, one-tonne model of the Queen Mary, and the Southampton Stories pavilion of costumes, models and artworks from the city's past, is a modest, decent city museum you can walk through in half an hour without regret if you cut it short. The full visit is about two hours, longer if you stop at everything, and the place is genuinely easy with a family: a lift between the two floors, pushchairs welcome in every gallery with a buggy park opposite the front desk, baby changing on the ground floor and a small café. It opens daily 10:00 to 17:00, with last entry at 16:45 and arrival by 16:00 advised. Adults pay £13.05, children aged 5 to 16 £8.55 and a family of two adults and three children £39.60, with no need to book ahead. Keep the receipt: it gets you back in free for a full year. Southampton Central station is a five-minute walk, and the West Park and Marlands multi-storey car parks are a few minutes away. A wet day on the way to the cruise terminal, or a stop heading south out of London, is exactly the right moment for it; a long detour for it alone is not.
The crew, not the passengers: recorded testimony, original objects and a display that places the crew in their homes street by street.
Take the virtual wheel then shovel coal into the furnaces; the one children run back to.
The original magistrates' court, kept intact, replays scenes from the 1912 inquiry into the sinking.
Civic Centre, Havelock Road, Southampton SO14 7FY
Belfast is far bigger and more spectacular and tells the story of building the ship; SeaCity tells the story of the people who crewed it and died, and is smaller, quieter and cheaper. If you are in Southampton anyway, yes, especially with children, but do not travel down from London just for it.
No. The museum's own line is just turn up, no need to pre-book, and even in July and August you can normally buy at the door without a long wait; the busiest days tend to be cruise-departure days. First thing in the morning is quietest.