The White Star Line Memorial Foundation

Announcements

January:

We have updated our White Star Line Ships List which contains the earliest White Star Line vessels, chartered and owned, and many ships which are not covered on other sites. Although we have not listed the data on the Ships List page, we also have the length, beam, and depth of hold measurements for many of the ships as well as their Official Numbers and Signal Letters.

The White Star Line Ships List page will be updated as research into the early ships is ever ongoing. We just acquired large volumes of early newspapers and other material dating from the mid to late 1840s to the 1860s which has already provided a tremendous amount of new data. More surprises are sure to come!

December:

From the Director –

I would like to give my utmost thanks to two gentlemen who went out of their way to aid in getting our new site up. In many instances they built templates, layouts, and functions from scratch. Thank you Adrian Testa-Avila at http://enspi.red/ and Paul O’Brien at http://pmob.co.uk/. The knowledge you gentlemen possess regarding Cascading Style Sheets, jQuery, PHP, and a host of other Internet tools is absolutely amazing, and you both do it with such ease. Your knowledge is trumped only by your kindness and generosity. Thank you both.

November:

Taking photographs of newly acquired objects and archiving.

October:

The Wife of the Director has taken the helm as CEO/CFO of the White Star Line Memorial Foundation. Her extensive executive, management, and financial skills are a much needed asset for the rapidly growing foundation and takes considerable burden from the director while he deals with ongoing health issues.

Taking a much deserved break.

September:

Conservation time again! Scheduled items due for evaluation are being removed from their containers, given a careful look, and some personal care given if required. Their packing materials will be refreshed to insure that moisture and harmful elements in the atmosphere will not affect them. They will then be carefully placed into new containers just acquired, and go back into storage where they remain until called out for display, or their next scheduled evaluation.

August:

Research, Cataloguing, and following up on planned events for 2015. A new shipment of acquired relics is expected soon and will be announced at a later date.

July:

Research and Cataloguing.

June:

Conducting research. Newly discovered information will be used throughout this site.

May:

We are going through a large collection of newspapers we acquired at the end of April. These papers are from the Eastern U.S. and the U.K. and are rife with Maritime advertisements. Dating as early as the late 1840's, they might hold yet revealed information about the early "White Star" Line.

April:

We are taking inventory in consideration of offering our surplus artifacts to the public. How this will be done is yet to be determined as the quantity is substantial.

March:

There are many projects in the works which we cannot reveal just yet, but we will have an announcement this year about part of our collection going on display at a major venue. Additionally, we are working with Paul Louden-Brown on a project that is sure to be a major development and success. There are also projects in Australia that are being looked at. The future looks busy, just as we like it!

February:

It's conservation time again! That time when items scheduled for evaluation are removed from their containers, given a careful look and some personal care if needed, and their packing materials refreshed to insure that moisture and harmful elements in the atmosphere do not affect them. They are then carefully placed back into their containers and go back into storage where they remain until called out for display or their next scheduled evaluation.

January:

Acquired images of John Pilkington and Henry Threlfall Wilson which were among original images the White Star Line Memorial Foundation acquired showing early White Star Line Owners and Captains. Images of the early Owners and Captains are extremely rare, so it is fortunate we we able to saved these from being lost to history.

2013 Summary:

- From the Director.

2013 was quite a year of discovery. We acquired two tiles and two dead eyes recovered from the wreck of the S.S. Atlantic and added them to our Atlantic archive material. We now have the second largest collection of S.S. Atlantic relics in the world!

Of all the great discoveries made in 2013, my personal favorite was the finding and acquisition of the last remaining pieces of the White Star Clipper "Red Jacket." In addition to these, I was directed to her figurehead and was astonished it still exists.

Other items added to our archives this year was a pocket tide table for Liverpool from 1857 which belonged to Captain Mathias H. O'Halloran of the Red Jacket, and a copy of the "Red Jacket Sapling" - a periodical published aboard the Red Jacket in June 1855.

Our collection of early White Star Line artifacts continues to grow and amaze. We look forward to 2014 with great anticipation. Who knows what our travels and research will uncover?!