Class 3 have been continuing to find out about the crew of R.M.S. Titanic. This week we were learning about the mail clerks who worked on board. We discovered that R.M.S. stands for Royal Mail Ship and that the Titanic had been carrying more than 3000 bags of mail to America!
The Titanic had 5 mail clerks altogether, 3 American and 2 British. They worked very hard in the Mail Sorting Room, sorting more than 60,000 letters and parcels every day!
After the mail clerks had sorted the letters into bundles they put facing slips on top with their names and the destinations. We dressed up as mail clerks and made some facing slips.
Then we sorted some letters. Quite a job as they had to be filed in the correct pigeon holes according to American state!
We were very impressed that Nathan could tell us most of the American state names just from their abbreviations. Can you work out where the letters in holes AZ, FL and NY should go to?
Our thoughts on the Titanic’s mail clerks.
Jason: I liked the letter scene from the Titanic powerpoint where we got to see inside the Mail Sorting Room.
Josh: I liked doing the mail activities but if I had been on the Titanic I would have saved myself instead of trying to save the mail!
This looks like a fun activity Class 3. I didn’t realise the Titanic had been carrying so much mail. Thank you for sharing this interesting information with us.
Good thinking Josh. I think lots of the mail clerks would have tried to save themselves instead of the mail.