RMS Empress of Britain (1905) transatlantic traffic, the ship was sometimes held in quarantine if a communicative disease was discovered amongst the passengers. Similarly, it would have been expected, for example, that the ship would notify authorities in Halifax that one passenger had died from pneumonia en route to Canada from Europe. Less than two weeks after disaster struck the RMS "Titanic" in the North Atlantic, "Empress of Britain" also struck an iceberg on 26 April 1912; but the reported damage was only slight. On 27 July 1912, "Empress of Britain" rammed and sank the British collier SS "Helvetia" in fog off Cape Magdelene in
Musicians of the RMS Titanic C.W. & F.N. Black, who placed musicians on almost all British liners. Until the night of the sinking, the players performed as two separate groups: a quintet led by violinist and official bandleader Wallace Hartley, that played at teatime, after-dinner concerts, and Sunday services, among other occasions; and the violin, cello, and piano trio of Georges Krins, Roger Bricoux, and Theodore Brailey, that played at the À La Carte Restaurant and the Café Parisien. After the "Titanic" hit an iceberg and began to sink, Hartley and his fellow band members started playing music to help keep the passengers calm as