Gymnasium

The Gymnasium was just aft of the forward Grand Staircase along the Starboard side of the Boat Deck. It was described as a wonderful innovation for an ocean-going liner at the time. It was a brightly lit room with white-painted oak paneling and tile floors. Along the wall opposite the entrance was a carved oak installation with an illustrated cutaway of an Olympic Class ocean liner and a map depicting the travel routes of the White Star Line throughout the world. The room was equipped with state-of-the-art exercise equipment manufactured in Wiesbaden, including two electric camels, an electric horse, a rowing machine, a punching bag, a weightlifting machine, and mechanical bicycles.

Tickets, priced at one shilling ($0.25 USD), were available from the purser and entitled First Class passengers to one session in this facility. There was a permanent "Physical Educator" on staff named Thomas W. McCawley, a physical educator for the White Star Line, who assisted passengers in using the devices.

The Gymnasium was open during the following hours and like other recreational facilities aboard the Titanic, segregated by gender and age:

9:00 P.M. – 12:00 P.M. for Ladies Only.
1:00–3:00 P.M. for Children Only.
2:00–6:00 P.M. for Gentlemen Only.

The White Star Line said that passengers could "indulge in the action of horse riding, cycling, boat rowing etcetera,, therefore obtain both beneficial exercise, as well as endless amusement." One of the most popular attractions was the electric camel, an exercise riding machine that mimicked the gait of a camel.

History[]

The ship was in Southampton on the 4th of April just before midnight. The next day, April 5, was Good Friday. The ship was extensively paved or pavorised, decorated in flags. She was open for sightseeing to outsiders for a small fee and even her Second Class passengers could have look at the Gymnasium and have a crack at the attributes. Lawrence Beesley took this opportunity to try out the home trainer.

On April 15, when the ship was sinking, the Gymnasium was engulfed with First Class passengers while they waited for permission to board the lifeboats, shortly after 1:00 A.M. John Jacob Astor took a lifejacket and cut it open to show his wife that it was filled with cork.

On the fateful night of 15 April 1912, McCawley remained at his post in the Gymnasium and went down with the ship. He didn't wear a lifejacket as he remarked that it would only slow him down in swimming.

Wreck[]

Some of the equipment is still in place on the wreck. The window frames to the Boat Deck are broken out and gone. The walls were bent as the #2 funnel fell to starboard, over the roof of the gym.

In 1986, Robert Ballard and his crew were able to look through the windows of the Gymnasium with the Jason Junior ROV and recognize some of the equipment.

The remains of all of this have since sunken into A-Deck below. The roof of the deck house which enclosed the Gymnasium has long since collapsed and the room itself is sinking into the deck below. Nonetheless the wood paneling that lined the walls is recognizable and so are some of the exercise machines.