Empress of Britain - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

RMS Empress of Britain was a transatlantic ocean liner
Ocean liner
An ocean liner is a ship designed to transport people from one seaport to another along regular long-distance maritime routes according to a schedule. Liners may also carry cargo or mail, and may sometimes be used for other purposes .Cargo vessels running to a schedule are sometimes referred to as...

built by Fairfield Shipbuilding at Govan
Govan
Govan is a district and former burgh now part of southwest City of Glasgow, Scotland. It is situated west of Glasgow city centre, on the south bank of the River Clyde, opposite the mouth of the River Kelvin and the district of Partick....

on the Clyde
River Clyde
The River Clyde is a major river in Scotland. It is the ninth longest river in the United Kingdom, and the third longest in Scotland. Flowing through the major city of Glasgow, it was an important river for shipbuilding and trade in the British Empire....

in Scotland in 1905-1906 for Canadian Pacific Steamship
CP Ships
CP Ships was a large Canadian container shipping company, prior to being taken over by Hapag Lloyd in late 2005. CP Ships had its head office in the City of Westminster in London and later in the City Place Gatwick development on the property of London Gatwick Airport in Crawley, West Sussex.The...

(CP). This ship -- the first of three CP vessels to be named Empress of Britain -- regularly traversed the trans-Atlantic route between Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

and Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

until 1922, with the exception of the war years. This Empress was distinguished by the Royal Mail Ship
Royal Mail Ship
Royal Mail Ship , usually seen in its abbreviated form RMS, a designation which dates back to 1840, is the ship prefix used for seagoing vessels that carry mail under contract by Royal Mail...

(RMS) prefix in front of her name because the British government and Canadian Pacific Railway
Canadian Pacific Railway
The Canadian Pacific Railway , formerly also known as CP Rail between 1968 and 1996, is a historic Canadian Class I railway founded in 1881 and now operated by Canadian Pacific Railway Limited, which began operations as legal owner in a corporate restructuring in 2001...

(CPR) had decades earlier reached agreement on a contract for subsidized mail service between Britain and Hong Kong via Canada.

History
The Empress of Britain was built by Fairfield Shipbuilding in Govan near Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...

, Scotland. She was launched on 11 November 1905.

The 14,189-ton vessel had a length of 458.8 feet, and her beam was 65.7 feet. The ship had two funnels, two masts, twin peopellers and an average speed of 18-knots. The ocean liner provided accommodation for 310 first-class passengers and for 470 second-class passengers. There was also room for 730 third-class passengers.

The SS Empress of Britain left Liverpool on 5 May 1906 on her maiden voyage to Quebec. Thereafter, she was scheduled to sail regularly back and forth on the trans-Atlantic route. In the early days of wireless telegraphy, the call sign established for the "Empress of Britain was "MPB."

On her second voyage, the Empress of Britain made the west-bound trip from Mouville to Rimouski in five days, 21 hours, 17 minutes -- a new record, which was a credit to her Captain, James Anderson Murray, and to her shipbuilders. Both the Empress of Britain and her sister ship, the ill-fated RMS Empress of Ireland were the fastest ships making the trans-Atlantic run at the time. In 1914, the Empress of Ireland sank in the St. Lawrence River with great loss of life.

Much of what would have been construed as ordinary, even unremarkable during this period was an inextricable part of the ship's history. In the conventional course of trans-Pacific 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, the Empress of Britain also struck an iceberg on 26 April 1912; but the reported damage was only slight.

On 27 July 1912, the Empress of Britain rammed and sank the British collier SS Helvetia in fog off Cape Magdelene in the estuary of the St Lawrence River.

World War I

In 1914 she was re-fitted to become one of the Admiralty's Armed merchantmen

Armed merchantmen

Armed merchantman is a term that has come to mean a merchant ship equipped with guns, usually for defensive purposes, either by design or after the fact. In the days of sail, piracy and privateers, many merchantmen would be routinely armed, especially those engaging in long distance and high value...

. She joined Admiral Archibald Peile Stoddart's squadron in the South Atlantic. She later patrolled between Cape Finisterre

Cape Finisterre

right|thumb|300px|Position of Cape Finisterre on the [[Iberian Peninsula]]Cape Finisterre is a rock-bound peninsula on the west coast of Galicia, Spain....

and the Cape Verde Islands.

In May 1915, she was recommissioned as a troop transport and carried more than 110,000 troops to the Dardanelles, Egypt and India. She also carried Canadian and US expeditionary forces across the North Atlantic.

On 12 December 1915, while passing through the Straits of Gibraltar, she collided with and sank a Greek steamer.

Post-war years

The end of the War in Europe meant a change for the Empress of Britain. Reports of the arrival and departure of the Empress of Britain were published in the New York Times in December 1918, but the Liverpool-New York route was not long-lasting. By March 1919, she resumed the Liverpool-St.John, New Brunswick service for one round-trip voyage. Then the vessel was then converted from coal to oil fuel and her passenger accommodations were modernised. On 9 January 1920, she returned to active service on the Liverpool-Quebec crossings.

In October 1922, the Empress begin sailing on the Southampton-Cherbourg-Quebec route.

Montroyal

In 1924, the ship was re-named the SS Montroyal. Her accommodations were altered to carry 600 cabin passengers and 800 third-class passengers. On 19 April 1924, she was returned to service sailing on the Liverpool-Quebec route.

In 1926, her accommodations were again altered to carry cabin, tourist and 3rd class passengers. She completed eight round-trip voyages in that year. In 1927, the ship was transferred to the Antwerp-Southampton-Cherbourg-Quebec route.

The Montroyal commenced her final voyage from Antwerp on 7 September 1929. Including this last voyage, she had completed 190 round-trip crossings of the North Atlantic.

On 17 June 1930, she was sold to the Stavanger Shipbreaking Co. and was scrapped. The owner of the Sola Strand Hotel bought the lounge from the shipbreakers and incorporated it into his hotel as the Montroyal Ballroom. The beautiful woodwork is still a feature of this building which now houses the Norwegian School for Hotel Management.

External links

The Great Ocean Liners: RMS Empress of Britain
Great ships: RMS Empress of Britain
Ships List: Description, RMS Empress of Britain

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

History

World War I

Post-war years

Montroyal

See also

Further reading

External links