RMS Empress of China (1891) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

RMS Empress of China was an 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 in 1890-1891 by Naval Construction & Armament Co., Barrow

Barrow-in-Furness

Barrow-in-Furness is an industrial town and seaport which forms about half the territory of the wider Borough of Barrow-in-Furness in the county of Cumbria, England. It lies north of Liverpool, northwest of Manchester and southwest from the county town of Carlisle...

, England for Canadian Pacific Steamships (CP). This ship—the first of three CP vessels to be named Empress of China—regularly traversed the trans-Pacific route between the west coast of Canada and the Far East until she struck an underwater reef and sank in Tokyo harbour in 1911.

Royal Mail Ship

This Empress was entitled to the prefix "RMS

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...

", meaning "Royal Mail Ship", the prefix used by seagoing vessels which carry mail under contract to the Royal Mail

Royal Mail

Royal Mail is the government-owned postal service in the United Kingdom. Royal Mail Holdings plc owns Royal Mail Group Limited, which in turn operates the brands Royal Mail and Parcelforce Worldwide...

.

In 1891, 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) and the British government reached agreement on a contract for subsidized mail service between Britain

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

and Hong Kong

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

via Canada; and the route began to be serviced by three specially designed ocean liners. Each of these three yachtlike vessels was given an Imperial name.

The RMS Empress of India and her two sister-ships—the RMS Empress of China and the RMS Empress of Japan -- created a flexible foundation for the CPR trans-Pacific fleet which would ply this route for the next half century.

History

The Empress of China was built by Naval Construction & Armament Co. (now absorbed into Vickers Armstrongs) at Barrow

Barrow-in-Furness

, England. The keel was laid in 1890; and she was launched on 25 March 1891.

The 5,905-ton vessel had a length of 455.6 feet, and her beam was 51.2 feet. The graceful white-painted, clipper-bowed ship had two buff-coloured funnels with a band of black paint at the top, three lightweight schooner-type masts, and an average speed of 16-knots. This Empress and her two sister-ship Empresses were the first vessels in the Pacific to have twin propellers with reciprocating engines. The ship was designed to provide accommodation for 770 passengers (120 first class, 50 second class and 600 steerage).

The SS Empress of China left Liverpool

Liverpool

Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

on 15 July 1891 on her maiden voyage via Suez

Suez

Suez is a seaport city in north-eastern Egypt, located on the north coast of the Gulf of Suez , near the southern terminus of the Suez Canal, having the same boundaries as Suez governorate. It has three harbors, Adabya, Ain Sokhna and Port Tawfiq, and extensive port facilities...

to Hong Kong and Vancouver

Vancouver

Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...

. Thereafter, she regularly sailed the route between Canada and the east coast of Asia. In the early days of wireless telegraphy, the call sign established for the Empress of China was "MPG."

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, as when it was discovered that a passenger from Hong Kong to Yokohama

Yokohama

is the capital city of Kanagawa Prefecture and the second largest city in Japan by population after Tokyo and most populous municipality of Japan. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of Tokyo, in the Kantō region of the main island of Honshu...

showed signs of smallpox, and the vessel was held in Yokohama port until the incubation period for the disease had passed. The cargo holds of the Empress would have been routinely examined in the normal course of harbor-master's business in Hong Kong, Yokohama or Vancouver.

Amongst the celebrities sailing on the Empress, was Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria

Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria

Franz Ferdinand was an Archduke of Austria-Este, Austro-Hungarian and Royal Prince of Hungary and of Bohemia, and from 1889 until his death, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne. His assassination in Sarajevo precipitated Austria-Hungary's declaration of war against Serbia...

. On 25 August 1893, the Archduke boarded the ocean liner at Yokohama for a voyage across the Pacific to Vancouver.

On 27 July 1911 the Empress encountered rough seas and thick fog 65 mile south of Tokyo

Tokyo

, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

harbor. She struck a submerged rock off the Nojima Saki Light while trying to round the southern tip of the Awa

Awa Province (Chiba)

was a province of Japan in the area of modern Chiba Prefecture. It lies on the tip of the Boso Peninsula , whose name takes its first kanji from the name of Awa Province and its second from Kazusa and Shimōsa Provinces. Its abbreviated form name was or...

peninsula

Peninsula

A peninsula is a piece of land that is bordered by water on three sides but connected to mainland. In many Germanic and Celtic languages and also in Baltic, Slavic and Hungarian, peninsulas are called "half-islands"....

inbound for Yokohama. Submerged rocks extend about a mile from the coast in an area of the bay which is known for its dangerous currents. This accident occurred very close to where another ship foundered on the rocks in 1907. The Japanese cruisers Aso and Soya were dispatched to assist in removing mail, baggage, and passengers. The ship was abandoned with no loss of life. A year later, the Empress was re-floated; and in October 1912, she was towed into Yokohama where she was dismantled and scrapped.
CP Empresses of China

In 1921, Canadian Pacific added two German-built vessels to the Empress fleet; and initially, both were confusingly re-named Empress of China. A quick explanation will help distinguish these the quite different ships which each sailed with the same name.

The first Empress of China was a 5,905-ton vessel launched in 1891 from Barrow, England. She was wrecked on a reef at Tokyo Bay in 1911, and subsequently scrapped in 1912.

The second SS Empress of China was a 16,992-ton vessel launched in 1907 from Gestemunde, Germany as the SS Prince Freidrich Wilhelm for the Norddeutscher Lloyd Line
Norddeutscher Lloyd
Norddeutsche Lloyd was a German shipping company. It was founded by Hermann Henrich Meier and Eduard Crüsemann in Bremen on February 20, 1857. It developed into one of the most important German shipping companies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and was instrumental in the economic...

(NDL). The ship was purchased in 1921 by Canadian Pacific and then immediately, the ship was re-named Empress of China for a short time. Later in that same year, the ship was re-named yet again as the Empress of India. Subsequent names for this vessel were: the SS Montlaurier (1922); and the SS Montnairn (1925). The ship was scrapped 1929.

The third SS Empress of China was a 21,860-ton vessel launched in 1913 from Stettin, Germany, as the SS Tirpitz for Hamburg-America Line (HAPAG). The ship was purchased in 1921 by CP and re-named the Empress of China. Then next year, in 1922, the ship was re-named Empress of Australia after re-fitting at Clydebank
Clydebank
Clydebank is a town in West Dunbartonshire, in the Central Lowlands of Scotland. Situated on the north bank of the River Clyde, Clydebank borders Dumbarton, the town with which it was combined to form West Dunbartonshire, as well as the town of Milngavie in East Dunbartonshire, and the Yoker and...

. The ship was ultimately scrapped in 1952.

In other words, this vessel from Barrow was the first of three ships named Empress of China.

External links

The Ships List: Passenger ships web site
Simplon Postcards: Canadian Pacific postcard images

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

Royal Mail Ship

History

See also

External links