"Women and children first" (or to a lesser extent, the Birkenhead Drill) is a historical protocol whereby the lives of women and children are saved first in a life-threatening situation (typically abandoning ship, when survivial resources such as lifeboats are limited). The saying is most famously associated with the sinking of RMS Titanic in 1912, although the first documented use concerned the wrecking of the Royal Navy troopship HMS Birkenhead.
History[]
Thomas Hemy's famous painting of soldiers standing fast on HMS Birkenhead while the women and children head off in a lifeboat in the background
During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, ships typically did not carry enough lifeboats to save all the passengers and crew in the event of disaster. In 1870, answering a question at the House of Commons of the United Kingdom about the sinking of PS Normandy, George Shaw-Lefevre said the following words:
"in the opinion of the Board of Trade, it will not be possible to compel the passenger steamers running between England and France to have boats sufficient for the very numerous passengers they often carry. They would encumber the decks, and rather add to the danger than detract from it"
By the turn of the 20th century larger ships meant more people could travel, but safety rules regarding lifeboats remained out of date: for example, British legislation concerning the number of lifeboats was based on the tonnage of a vessel and only encompassed vessels of "10,000 gross tons and over". The result was that a sinking usually involved a moral dilemma for passengers and crew as to whose lives should be saved with the limited available lifeboats.
The practice of women and children first arose from the chivalrous actions of soldiers during sinking of the Royal Navy troopship HMS Birkenhead in 1852, which was memorialized in newspapers and paintings of the time, and in poems such as Rudyard Kipling's "Soldier an' Sailor Too." In that wreck the captain ordered the wives and children aboard (20 in all) to enter the only small lifeboat available, saving them, while the men stayed on board until the ship was wrecked. Only about 25% of the men survived the wreck and none of the senior officers did. Samuel Smiles, in his 1859 book Self-Help, described the principle being applied during Siege of Lucknow. The specific phrase first appeared in a novel by William Douglas O'Connor entitled Harrington: A True Story of Love in 1860.
The policy of women and children first when the Titanic - recently dramatised for a hit ITV series, pictured - led to 70 per cent of these groups being saved, compared with just 20 per cent of the men
Although never part of international maritime law, the phrase was popularised by its usage on the RMS Titanic, where, as a consequence of this practice, 74% of the women on board were saved and 52% of the children, but only 20% of the men. Some officers on the Titanic misinterpreted the order from Captain Smith, and tried to prevent men from boarding the lifeboats. It was intended that women and children would board first, with any remaining free spaces for men. Because so few men were saved on the Titanic, the men who did survive were initially branded as cowards, including White Star Line official, J. Bruce Ismay.
There is no legal basis for the protocol of women and children first — according to International Maritime Organization regulations, ships have 30 minutes to load all passengers into lifeboats and maneuver the boats away. History has furthermore shown that application of the protocol has been the exception rather than the rule. An Uppsala University study published in April 2012, found that historical survival rates have been in favor of adult males rather than women or children. The paper analyzed 18 maritime disasters covering a period of one and a half centuries, from 1852 to 2011. The same study found that crew members have a relative survival advantage over passengers. The particular case of RMS Titanic is therefore not representative of maritime conduct in general.
The clothing worn by women, notably in the Victorian era, has played a role in the historical survival rates of men vs women at sea. With the sinking of the Royal Charter, the women were still dressing below decks when they should have been mustering with the men on the deck to abandon ship; their bulkier clothing also limited their ability to swim in the heavy surf.