Monday, 22 July, 2002 14:00 BST
Local business and RMS Titanic | |
|  | | The ornate exterior of Oakley and Watling |
| | As well as the obvious benefit of employment on board the Titanic and her sister ships, many local businesses benefited from supplying the White Star Line with its many needs. |
| | | Amongst the local firms who benefited from Southampton being home to the great liners was Millers Navel Suppliers - they were were tailors who supplied uniforms for the crew. Charles George Hibbert and Co of Southampton and London, export merchants, supplied bottled beer.
"They appear to have been particularly proud of supplying the Titanic, for they made special bills or posters `Bottled beer for the White Star liner Titanic, the largest vessel in the world'"
Titanic Voices p49 |
Oakley and Watling Fruit and Vegetable Suppliers based on the High Street was another local firms who relied on their trade with the Titanic.
"We did food, meat, poultry, tin foods for all the large ships. My father, Eric Grey moved down to Southampton in 1911. We were in Queens Terrace, later in Oxford Street. My father who died in 1956, put food on the Titanic and he saw the ship off on her maiden voyage."
Aubrey Grey. Titanic Voices p54 |
 | An employee of Bealing Nurseries, loading palms for the liners onto a mule drawn trap c1900
Titanic Voices p49 |
F G Bealing and Son Nursery was a horticulture florist which owned large nurseries and flower fields at Burgess Road, Highfield.
There were numerous glasshouses for different types of plants; thousands of plants were needed for the liners.
Every time a White Star liner was in port Mr Bealing accompanied by his son Frank (jnr) and his foreman Mr W F 'Bill' Geapin would load their mule drawn carts, usually in the evening, with flowers, palms and plants and drive them to the docks to the quay alongside each liner.
Titanic Voices p50
Eleven-year-old Eileen Lenox Conyingham, later Mrs Schefer, who crossed to Cherbourg, remembered Titanic: "as a ship full of flowers." Titanic voices P51
Palethorpes supplied 2,500lbs of sausages to the ship before it sailed and produced adverts to promote their connection.
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