THE GUARANTEE GROUP
A Guarantee Group was a group of nine individuals selected to attend a ship's maiden voyage, in order to record the performance and any problems that may arise with the ship. The members in the Guarantee Group are deemed the best in their respected fields at that time. This elite group of individuals is never the same and can change with every maiden voyage.
Originally a group of nine was planned but in the end just eight of the 14,000 shipworkers were onboard. Liam Flaherty, a Catholic shipwright and joiner, had a place on the Guarantee Group , but did not end up going on the maiden voyage because his father, a fellow shipworker, was beaten up by some of the protestant workers at Harland & Wolff and told not to return to his job. The attack saved Liam's life.
The possibility of being part of the Guarantee Group for the Titanic was motivation for workers at Harland & Wolff to work hard and prove their abilities to the company.
The members included:
Thomas Andrews (pictured above), William Henry Campbell, Roderick Robert Crispin Chisholm, Alfred Fleming Cunningham, Anthony Wood Frost, Robert Knight, Francis Parkes, Henry William Marsh Parr, and Ennis Hastings Watson. All perished in the sinking.
(Titanic: Birth of A Legend followed some of these men.)
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