RMS Empress of Ireland
Encyclopedia
RMS Empress of Ireland was an ocean liner
built in 1905 by Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering at Govan
on the Clyde
in Scotland
for Canadian Pacific Steamships (CP). This Empress was distinguished by the Royal Mail Ship
(RMS) prefix in front of her name because the British government and Canadian Pacific Railway
(CPR) had decades earlier reached agreement on a mail subsidy contract between Britain and Hong Kong via Canada.
While steaming on the St. Lawrence River in fog, the Empress was struck amidships by the Norwegian
collier
(coal freighter) SS Storstad
; and the Empress sank very quickly in the early morning of 29 May 1914. This accident claimed 1,012 lives, making it the deadliest maritime disaster in Canadian history.
Artefacts from the wreckage and the history of the vessel, her passengers and crew are on display in the Empress of Ireland Pavilion at the Site historique maritime de la Pointe-au-Père
in Rimouski, Quebec
.
near Glasgow
in Scotland
. The 14,191-ton vessel was a fixed price contract of £375,000 and was to be delivered to C.P.R. eighteen months from the date the contract was signed. The keel was laid for hull number 443 at Fairfield's berth number 4 next to her sister ship, the Empress of Britain which was also under construction on 10 April 1905. The new Empress had a length of 570 feet (174 m), and her beam was 66 feet (20.1 m). The plumb-bowed ship had twin funnels, two masts, twin propellers and an average speed of 18 knots (33 km/h). Providing accommodation for 310 first-class passengers and for 470 second-class passengers, there was also room for up to 750 third-class passengers. This meant that she had an overall capacity of 1,580.
The Empress was launched on 26 January 1906, and she set out on her maiden voyage from Liverpool
, she proved herself as both reliable and fast. There was one incident in 1909 where the Empress struck a sunken vessel or an unknown submerged rock at the northern end of the St. Lawrence.
At some point during her career, the Empress of Ireland underwent minor renovations to relieve her superstructure of its enclosed forward promenade decks.
The vessel, along with her sister ship Empress of Britain, had been commissioned by Canadian Pacific for the northern trans-Atlantic route between Quebec
and England
. The transcontinental CPR and its fleet of ocean liners were part of the company's self-proclaimed World's Greatest Transportation System.
for Liverpool at 16:30 local time on 28 May 1914 with 1,477 passengers and crew. Henry George Kendall
had just been promoted to captain of the Empress at the beginning of the month; and it was his first trip down the St. Lawrence River in command of the vessel.
Early the next morning on 29 May 1914, the ship was proceeding down the channel near Pointe-au-Père, Quebec
(eastern district of the town of Rimouski
) in heavy fog
. At 02:00 local time, the Norwegian
collier crashed into the side of the Empress of Ireland. The Storstad did not sink, but Empress of Ireland, with severe damage to her starboard side, listed rapidly, taking on water. Most of the passengers and crew in the lower decks drowned quickly when water poured into the ship from the open porthole
s, some of which were only a few feet above the water line. However, many passengers and crew in the upper deck cabins, awakened by the collision, made it out onto the boat deck and into some of the lifeboats which were being loaded immediately.
Within a few minutes after the collision, the Empress of Ireland had listed so far on her starboard side that it became impossible to launch any more lifeboats than the four that had already been launched.
Ten or eleven minutes after the collision, the ship lurched violently on her starboard side in which as many as 700 passengers and crew crawled out of the portholes and decks onto her side. For a minute or two, the Empress of Ireland lay on her side, while it seemed to the passengers and crew that the ship had run aground. But a few minutes later, about 14 minutes after the collision, the ship's stern rose briefly out of the water, and her hull sank out of sight, throwing the hundreds of people still on her port side into the near-freezing water.
Exactly 1,012 people died. Of that number, 840 were passengers, eight more than the .
There were only 465 survivors, four of whom were children (the other 134 children were lost) and 42 of whom were women (the other 279 women were lost). One of the survivors was Captain Kendall, who was on the bridge at the time and quickly ordered the lifeboats to be launched. When the Empress was thrown on her side, Kendall was thrown from the bridge into the water, and was taken down with the ship as she began to go under. Swimming to the surface, Kendall clung to a wooden grating long enough for a nearby lifeboat, with crew members aboard, to row over and pull him in.
Immediately, Kendall took command of the lifeboat and began rescue operations. He had the lifeboat crew pull many people from the water into the boat. When the boat was full, Kendall ordered the crewmen to row to the lights of the mysterious vessel that had rammed them to drop off the survivors. After an hour or two of making a few trips back and forth from the nearby Storstad to the wreckage to look for survivors, Kendall gave up as there was no more hope of finding survivors as most had succumbed to drowning or hypothermia
.
Amongst the dead were the English dramatist and novelist Laurence Irving. Amongst the survivors, Frank "Lucky" Tower
is improbably said to have been one of the few crewmen who survived this shipwreck and the sinking of the Titanic and the sinking of the Lusitania.
The passengers included a large contingent of Canadian members of the Salvation Army
. These travelers, all but eight of whom died, were members of the Canadian Staff Band of The Salvation Army who were travelling to London for an international conference. At Mount Pleasant Cemetery
in Toronto, Ontario, there is a monument reading "167 officers and soldiers of the Salvation Army promoted to glory" in the sinking.
Ultimately, the immense loss of life can be attributed to three factors: the location in which Storstad made contact, failure to close her watertight doors, and failure to close all portholes aboard. It was later revealed in testimony from surviving passengers and crew that nearly all of the portholes on the ship were left open by the passengers and crew who craved fresh air from the cramped and poorly ventilated staterooms. Under maritime rules, all portholes on travelling ships were to be closed, but this rule was frequently broken, especially in sheltered waters like the St. Lawrence River. When the Empress began to list to starboard, the water poured through the open portholes, flooding parts of the ship that were not damaged by the collision, and once that water hit nearly all the decks and compartments, the ship's end was inevitable.
The fact that most passengers at the time of the sinking were asleep, most not even awakened by the collision, also contributed to the loss of life when they were drowned in their cabins, most of them from the starboard side of the ship where the collision happened.
(later Lord Mersey). Bigham was notable for having presided over the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea
in 1913, and for having headed the official inquiries into a number of significant steamship tragedies—including the RMS Titanic in London (1912) and later the RMS Lusitania
in London (1915).
The cause of the tragedy was disputed by the surviving crew of Empress of Ireland and the crew of Storstad. There has since been much speculation as to the circumstances of the sinking. One theory involves the positioning of the ships when both encountered the fogbank. Captain Henry George Kendall
of Empress of Ireland claimed that he stayed close to shore, encountered the fog, reversed his engines to stop for about eight minutes; and then, he said, the ship was rammed by Storstad, which was executing a hard, 90-degree turn to the starboard. Another explanation suggested that despite Kendall's testimony, Empress of Ireland was sailing north-northeast into the centre of the channel, right into the path of Storstad.
In 1914, the position of ships in darkness could be determined by the lights they were showing. White lights mounted on the two main masts were read in conjunction with the red and green lights indicating port and starboard. A ship showing green to starboard, red to port and one white mast light would be coming directly at the observing vessel. This was the case on that night and both captains expected to pass each other "green to green". As the fog rolled across the river between the two vessels, what happened next has never been totally clarified.
A ship showing two white mast lights and one green light would be lying across the path of the approaching vessel, exposing the starboard side. A captain in 1914, familiar with the St Lawrence River, would reasonably be expected to have avoided a collision, if he had been able to see the lights in time. As Storstad crashed into Empress of Ireland, it is likely that the fog obscured the other ship until it was too late to take evasive action.
Either Empress of Ireland strayed across the bow of Storstad, or Storstad crossed into the path of Empress of Ireland from port to starboard and executed a 90 degree turn to pierce her starboard side.
If the testimony of both captains is to be believed, the collision happened as both vessels were stationary with their engines stopped.
An inquiry launched by Norwegians disagreed and cleared Storstads crew for all responsibilities. Instead, they blamed Kendall, captain of Empress of Ireland, for violating the protocol by not passing port to port.
Captain Kendall placed the blame on the Storstad for the collision. The first words he said to the captain of Storstad after the sinking were, "You have sunk my ship!" Kendall maintained for the rest of his life that it was not his fault the collision occurred.
Canadian Pacific Railway won a court case against A. F. Klaveness, owner of Storstad, for $2,000,000. Unable to afford the liabilities, A. F. Klaveness was forced to sell Storstad for $175,000 to the trust funds.
In 2005 a Canadian TV film, The Last Voyage of the Empress, investigated the sinking with historical reference, model re-enactment, and underwater investigation. The program’s opinion was that the cause of the incident appeared to be the fog, exacerbated by the actions of Kendall. Both captains were in their own way telling the truth, but with Kendall omitting the expediency of manipulating the Empress of Ireland in such a way as to keep his company’s advertised speed of Atlantic crossing. In order to pass the Storstad (off the Empress’s starboard bow) to quickly expedite this maintenance of speed, Kendall, in the fog, turned to starboard (towards Storstad) as part of a manoeuvre to spin back to his previous heading to pass Storstad as originally intended on his starboard side, thereby avoiding what he saw as a time-wasting diversion from his preferred and fast route through the channel. When Captain Anderson of the Storstad saw the Empress though the fog he thought, by seeing both Empress’s port and starboard lights during its manoeuvre, that the Empress was attempting to pass on the opposite side of the Storstad than previously apparent, and turned his ship to starboard to avoid a collision. However, the Empress turned to port to continue on its original time-saving heading; thus the bow to side collision. The conclusion of the programme was that both captains failed to abide by the condition that, on encountering fog, ships should maintain their heading, although the captain of the Storstad only deviated after seeing the deviation of the Empress. In the film, water tank replication of the incident indicated that the Empress could not have been stationary at the point of the collision. It also indicated, through underwater observations of the ship's telegraph, that Kendall's assertion that he gave the order to close watertight doors was probably not true.
The salvage crew resumed their operations and recovered 318 bags of mail and 212 bars of silver (silver bullion) worth about $150,000 (adjusted for inflation; $1,099,000). A hole had to be made in the hull of Empress of Ireland so the salvers could easily retrieve a large safe.
In 1964, the wreck was revisited by a group of Canadian divers who recovered a brass bell. In the 1970s, another group of divers recovered a stern telemeter, pieces of Marconi radio equipment
, a brass porthole
and a compass. Recently, Robert Ballard
visited the wreck of Empress of Ireland and found that it was being covered by silt. He also discovered that certain artifacts from fixtures to human remains continued to be taken out by "treasure hunters".
In 1998, Canadian authorities passed restrictions and laws protecting the wreck and other shipwrecks in Canadian waters from destructive penetration. Unlike , which is accessible only with a submersible
or remotely operated vehicle (ROV
), the Empress of Ireland, resting in a mere 130 feet (about 40 metres) of water, can be accessed by highly skilled scuba
divers. Numerous recreational divers have since died on the wreck, mostly through accidents related to entering the wreck.
on 15 May 1995 at the age of 88, one day before her 89th birthday.
Emmy, a loyal orange tabby who had never once missed a voyage, repeatedly tried to escape the ship near departure on 28 May 1914. The crew could not coax her aboard and the Empress departed without her. It was reported that Emmy watched the ship sail away from Quebec City
sitting on the roof of the shed at Pier 27, which would later become a place for the dead pulled from the river after the Empress went down. Apparently, Emmy had anticipated the Empress's demise and thereby chose not to be present.
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 1905 by Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering 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
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
for Canadian Pacific Steamships (CP). 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 mail subsidy contract between Britain and Hong Kong via Canada.
While steaming on the St. Lawrence River in fog, the Empress was struck amidships by the Norwegian
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
collier
Collier (ship type)
Collier is a historical term used to describe a bulk cargo ship designed to carry coal, especially for naval use by coal-fired warships. In the late 18th century a number of wooden-hulled sailing colliers gained fame after being adapted for use in voyages of exploration in the South Pacific, for...
(coal freighter) SS Storstad
Storstad
The Storstad was a 6,000 ton Norwegian collier , built in 1910 in Newcastle upon Tyne, owned by A. F. Klaveness & Co. She was torpedoed and sunk during World War I on March 8, 1917 by U-62 at .-Disaster:...
; and the Empress sank very quickly in the early morning of 29 May 1914. This accident claimed 1,012 lives, making it the deadliest maritime disaster in Canadian history.
Artefacts from the wreckage and the history of the vessel, her passengers and crew are on display in the Empress of Ireland Pavilion at the Site historique maritime de la Pointe-au-Père
Site historique maritime de la Pointe-au-Père
The Site historique maritime de la Pointe-au-Père is a maritime museum located in Rimouski, Quebec, Canada, that displays 200 years of maritime history, and includes the only submarine open to the public in Canada, the .-Collection:...
in Rimouski, Quebec
Rimouski, Quebec
Rimouski is a Canadian city in the central part of Bas-Saint-Laurent region in eastern Quebec. It is located on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River at the mouth of the Rimouski River, north-east of Quebec City....
.
History
The Empress of Ireland was built by Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Co. at GovanGovan
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....
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...
in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
. The 14,191-ton vessel was a fixed price contract of £375,000 and was to be delivered to C.P.R. eighteen months from the date the contract was signed. The keel was laid for hull number 443 at Fairfield's berth number 4 next to her sister ship, the Empress of Britain which was also under construction on 10 April 1905. The new Empress had a length of 570 feet (174 m), and her beam was 66 feet (20.1 m). The plumb-bowed ship had twin funnels, two masts, twin propellers and an average speed of 18 knots (33 km/h). Providing accommodation for 310 first-class passengers and for 470 second-class passengers, there was also room for up to 750 third-class passengers. This meant that she had an overall capacity of 1,580.
The Empress was launched on 26 January 1906, and she set out on her maiden voyage from 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...
, she proved herself as both reliable and fast. There was one incident in 1909 where the Empress struck a sunken vessel or an unknown submerged rock at the northern end of the St. Lawrence.
At some point during her career, the Empress of Ireland underwent minor renovations to relieve her superstructure of its enclosed forward promenade decks.
The vessel, along with her sister ship Empress of Britain, had been commissioned by Canadian Pacific for the northern trans-Atlantic route between Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
and England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. The transcontinental CPR and its fleet of ocean liners were part of the company's self-proclaimed World's Greatest Transportation System.
Collision
The Empress of Ireland departed Quebec CityQuebec City
Quebec , also Québec, Quebec City or Québec City is the capital of the Canadian province of Quebec and is located within the Capitale-Nationale region. It is the second most populous city in Quebec after Montreal, which is about to the southwest...
for Liverpool at 16:30 local time on 28 May 1914 with 1,477 passengers and crew. Henry George Kendall
Henry George Kendall
Henry George Kendall was a British sea captain who survived several shipwrecks, including an attack by a German submarine during World War I, and was also noted for his role in the capture of murderer Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen.-Early career:Captain Henry Kendall began his career in sailing ships in...
had just been promoted to captain of the Empress at the beginning of the month; and it was his first trip down the St. Lawrence River in command of the vessel.
Early the next morning on 29 May 1914, the ship was proceeding down the channel near Pointe-au-Père, Quebec
Pointe-au-Père, Quebec
Pointe-au-Père is a settlement on the center part of the Bas-Saint-Laurent region in eastern Quebec at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River. Its population was 4,240 in 2002, in which year the City of Pointe-au-Père was merged with Rimouski....
(eastern district of the town of Rimouski
Rimouski, Quebec
Rimouski is a Canadian city in the central part of Bas-Saint-Laurent region in eastern Quebec. It is located on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River at the mouth of the Rimouski River, north-east of Quebec City....
) in heavy fog
Fog
Fog is a collection of water droplets or ice crystals suspended in the air at or near the Earth's surface. While fog is a type of stratus cloud, the term "fog" is typically distinguished from the more generic term "cloud" in that fog is low-lying, and the moisture in the fog is often generated...
. At 02:00 local time, the Norwegian
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
collier crashed into the side of the Empress of Ireland. The Storstad did not sink, but Empress of Ireland, with severe damage to her starboard side, listed rapidly, taking on water. Most of the passengers and crew in the lower decks drowned quickly when water poured into the ship from the open porthole
Porthole
A porthole is a generally circular, window used on the hull of ships to admit light and air. Porthole is actually an abbreviated term for "port hole window"...
s, some of which were only a few feet above the water line. However, many passengers and crew in the upper deck cabins, awakened by the collision, made it out onto the boat deck and into some of the lifeboats which were being loaded immediately.
Within a few minutes after the collision, the Empress of Ireland had listed so far on her starboard side that it became impossible to launch any more lifeboats than the four that had already been launched.
Ten or eleven minutes after the collision, the ship lurched violently on her starboard side in which as many as 700 passengers and crew crawled out of the portholes and decks onto her side. For a minute or two, the Empress of Ireland lay on her side, while it seemed to the passengers and crew that the ship had run aground. But a few minutes later, about 14 minutes after the collision, the ship's stern rose briefly out of the water, and her hull sank out of sight, throwing the hundreds of people still on her port side into the near-freezing water.
Exactly 1,012 people died. Of that number, 840 were passengers, eight more than the .
There were only 465 survivors, four of whom were children (the other 134 children were lost) and 42 of whom were women (the other 279 women were lost). One of the survivors was Captain Kendall, who was on the bridge at the time and quickly ordered the lifeboats to be launched. When the Empress was thrown on her side, Kendall was thrown from the bridge into the water, and was taken down with the ship as she began to go under. Swimming to the surface, Kendall clung to a wooden grating long enough for a nearby lifeboat, with crew members aboard, to row over and pull him in.
Immediately, Kendall took command of the lifeboat and began rescue operations. He had the lifeboat crew pull many people from the water into the boat. When the boat was full, Kendall ordered the crewmen to row to the lights of the mysterious vessel that had rammed them to drop off the survivors. After an hour or two of making a few trips back and forth from the nearby Storstad to the wreckage to look for survivors, Kendall gave up as there was no more hope of finding survivors as most had succumbed to drowning or hypothermia
Hypothermia
Hypothermia is a condition in which core temperature drops below the required temperature for normal metabolism and body functions which is defined as . Body temperature is usually maintained near a constant level of through biologic homeostasis or thermoregulation...
.
Amongst the dead were the English dramatist and novelist Laurence Irving. Amongst the survivors, Frank "Lucky" Tower
Frank Tower
Frank 'Lucky' Tower is the subject of an urban legend that said that he survived the sinkings of the RMS Titanic, RMS Empress of Ireland, and RMS Lusitania. There is no evidence that anyone was involved in all three disasters, and no one with the name of Frank Tower on the crew list on either...
is improbably said to have been one of the few crewmen who survived this shipwreck and the sinking of the Titanic and the sinking of the Lusitania.
The passengers included a large contingent of Canadian members of the Salvation Army
Salvation Army
The Salvation Army is a Protestant Christian church known for its thrift stores and charity work. It is an international movement that currently works in over a hundred countries....
. These travelers, all but eight of whom died, were members of the Canadian Staff Band of The Salvation Army who were travelling to London for an international conference. At Mount Pleasant Cemetery
Mount Pleasant Cemetery
Mount Pleasant Cemetery can refer to several different cemeteries, including:*Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Toronto, Ontario, Canada*Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Taunton, Massachusetts, USA*Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Newark, New Jersey, USA...
in Toronto, Ontario, there is a monument reading "167 officers and soldiers of the Salvation Army promoted to glory" in the sinking.
Ultimately, the immense loss of life can be attributed to three factors: the location in which Storstad made contact, failure to close her watertight doors, and failure to close all portholes aboard. It was later revealed in testimony from surviving passengers and crew that nearly all of the portholes on the ship were left open by the passengers and crew who craved fresh air from the cramped and poorly ventilated staterooms. Under maritime rules, all portholes on travelling ships were to be closed, but this rule was frequently broken, especially in sheltered waters like the St. Lawrence River. When the Empress began to list to starboard, the water poured through the open portholes, flooding parts of the ship that were not damaged by the collision, and once that water hit nearly all the decks and compartments, the ship's end was inevitable.
The fact that most passengers at the time of the sinking were asleep, most not even awakened by the collision, also contributed to the loss of life when they were drowned in their cabins, most of them from the starboard side of the ship where the collision happened.
Investigation
On 16 June 1914, an inquiry was launched in Canada and the crew of Storstad was found responsible for the sinking of Empress of Ireland. Presiding over the contentious proceedings was Sir John BighamJohn Bigham, 1st Viscount Mersey
John Charles Bigham, 1st Viscount Mersey was a British jurist and politician. After early success as a lawyer, and a less successful spell as a politician, he was appointed a judge, working in commercial law....
(later Lord Mersey). Bigham was notable for having presided over the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea
International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea
The International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea is an international maritime safety treaty. The SOLAS Convention in its successive forms is generally regarded as the most important of all international treaties concerning the safety of merchant ships.- History :The first version of the...
in 1913, and for having headed the official inquiries into a number of significant steamship tragedies—including the RMS Titanic in London (1912) and later the RMS Lusitania
RMS Lusitania
RMS Lusitania was a British ocean liner designed by Leonard Peskett and built by John Brown and Company of Clydebank, Scotland. The ship entered passenger service with the Cunard Line on 26 August 1907 and continued on the line's heavily-traveled passenger service between Liverpool, England and New...
in London (1915).
The cause of the tragedy was disputed by the surviving crew of Empress of Ireland and the crew of Storstad. There has since been much speculation as to the circumstances of the sinking. One theory involves the positioning of the ships when both encountered the fogbank. Captain Henry George Kendall
Henry George Kendall
Henry George Kendall was a British sea captain who survived several shipwrecks, including an attack by a German submarine during World War I, and was also noted for his role in the capture of murderer Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen.-Early career:Captain Henry Kendall began his career in sailing ships in...
of Empress of Ireland claimed that he stayed close to shore, encountered the fog, reversed his engines to stop for about eight minutes; and then, he said, the ship was rammed by Storstad, which was executing a hard, 90-degree turn to the starboard. Another explanation suggested that despite Kendall's testimony, Empress of Ireland was sailing north-northeast into the centre of the channel, right into the path of Storstad.
In 1914, the position of ships in darkness could be determined by the lights they were showing. White lights mounted on the two main masts were read in conjunction with the red and green lights indicating port and starboard. A ship showing green to starboard, red to port and one white mast light would be coming directly at the observing vessel. This was the case on that night and both captains expected to pass each other "green to green". As the fog rolled across the river between the two vessels, what happened next has never been totally clarified.
A ship showing two white mast lights and one green light would be lying across the path of the approaching vessel, exposing the starboard side. A captain in 1914, familiar with the St Lawrence River, would reasonably be expected to have avoided a collision, if he had been able to see the lights in time. As Storstad crashed into Empress of Ireland, it is likely that the fog obscured the other ship until it was too late to take evasive action.
Either Empress of Ireland strayed across the bow of Storstad, or Storstad crossed into the path of Empress of Ireland from port to starboard and executed a 90 degree turn to pierce her starboard side.
If the testimony of both captains is to be believed, the collision happened as both vessels were stationary with their engines stopped.
An inquiry launched by Norwegians disagreed and cleared Storstads crew for all responsibilities. Instead, they blamed Kendall, captain of Empress of Ireland, for violating the protocol by not passing port to port.
Captain Kendall placed the blame on the Storstad for the collision. The first words he said to the captain of Storstad after the sinking were, "You have sunk my ship!" Kendall maintained for the rest of his life that it was not his fault the collision occurred.
Canadian Pacific Railway won a court case against A. F. Klaveness, owner of Storstad, for $2,000,000. Unable to afford the liabilities, A. F. Klaveness was forced to sell Storstad for $175,000 to the trust funds.
In 2005 a Canadian TV film, The Last Voyage of the Empress, investigated the sinking with historical reference, model re-enactment, and underwater investigation. The program’s opinion was that the cause of the incident appeared to be the fog, exacerbated by the actions of Kendall. Both captains were in their own way telling the truth, but with Kendall omitting the expediency of manipulating the Empress of Ireland in such a way as to keep his company’s advertised speed of Atlantic crossing. In order to pass the Storstad (off the Empress’s starboard bow) to quickly expedite this maintenance of speed, Kendall, in the fog, turned to starboard (towards Storstad) as part of a manoeuvre to spin back to his previous heading to pass Storstad as originally intended on his starboard side, thereby avoiding what he saw as a time-wasting diversion from his preferred and fast route through the channel. When Captain Anderson of the Storstad saw the Empress though the fog he thought, by seeing both Empress’s port and starboard lights during its manoeuvre, that the Empress was attempting to pass on the opposite side of the Storstad than previously apparent, and turned his ship to starboard to avoid a collision. However, the Empress turned to port to continue on its original time-saving heading; thus the bow to side collision. The conclusion of the programme was that both captains failed to abide by the condition that, on encountering fog, ships should maintain their heading, although the captain of the Storstad only deviated after seeing the deviation of the Empress. In the film, water tank replication of the incident indicated that the Empress could not have been stationary at the point of the collision. It also indicated, through underwater observations of the ship's telegraph, that Kendall's assertion that he gave the order to close watertight doors was probably not true.
Number of people on board and death toll
| | People on board | Victims | Survivors | |
| Crew | 420 | 172 | 248 |
| Passengers | 1,057 | 840 | 217 |
| Total | 1,477 | 1,012 | 465 |
| 1st Class Passengers | 87 | 51 | 36 |
| 2nd Class Passengers | 253 | 205 | 48 |
| 3rd Class Passengers | 717 | 584 | 133 |
| Children | 138 | 134 | 4 |
| Women | 310 | 269 | 41 |
| Men | 609 | 437 | 172 |
The wreck
Shortly after the disaster, a salvage operation began on Empress of Ireland. The salvers recovered bodies and valuables inside the ship. They were faced with limited visibility and strong currents from the St. Lawrence River. One of the divers, Edward Cossaboom, was killed when he fell from near the highest point of the wreck to the riverbed below and his diving equipment was unable to adjust to the sudden pressure increase.The salvage crew resumed their operations and recovered 318 bags of mail and 212 bars of silver (silver bullion) worth about $150,000 (adjusted for inflation; $1,099,000). A hole had to be made in the hull of Empress of Ireland so the salvers could easily retrieve a large safe.
In 1964, the wreck was revisited by a group of Canadian divers who recovered a brass bell. In the 1970s, another group of divers recovered a stern telemeter, pieces of Marconi radio equipment
Wireless telegraphy
Wireless telegraphy is a historical term used today to apply to early radio telegraph communications techniques and practices, particularly those used during the first three decades of radio before the term radio came into use....
, a brass porthole
Porthole
A porthole is a generally circular, window used on the hull of ships to admit light and air. Porthole is actually an abbreviated term for "port hole window"...
and a compass. Recently, Robert Ballard
Robert Ballard
Robert Duane Ballard is a former United States Navy officer and a professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island who is most noted for his work in underwater archaeology. He is most famous for the discoveries of the wrecks of the RMS Titanic in 1985, the battleship Bismarck in 1989,...
visited the wreck of Empress of Ireland and found that it was being covered by silt. He also discovered that certain artifacts from fixtures to human remains continued to be taken out by "treasure hunters".
In 1998, Canadian authorities passed restrictions and laws protecting the wreck and other shipwrecks in Canadian waters from destructive penetration. Unlike , which is accessible only with a submersible
Submersible
A submersible is a small vehicle designed to operate underwater. The term submersible is often used to differentiate from other underwater vehicles known as submarines, in that a submarine is a fully autonomous craft, capable of renewing its own power and breathing air, whereas a submersible is...
or remotely operated vehicle (ROV
Rov
Rov is a Talmudic concept which means the majority.It is based on the passage in Exodus 23;2: "after the majority to wrest" , which in Rabbinic interpretation means, that you shall accept things as the majority....
), the Empress of Ireland, resting in a mere 130 feet (about 40 metres) of water, can be accessed by highly skilled scuba
Scuba set
A scuba set is an independent breathing set that provides a scuba diver with the breathing gas necessary to breathe underwater during scuba diving. It is much used for sport diving and some sorts of work diving....
divers. Numerous recreational divers have since died on the wreck, mostly through accidents related to entering the wreck.
Design changes
The disaster led to a change in thinking amongst naval architects with regard to the design of ships' bows. The backward slanting bow design of the day caused, in the event of a collision, immediate massive fatal damage below the waterline. The effect of the Storstad's bows on the Empress of Ireland's has been likened to that of a "chisel being forced into an aluminium can". Designers began to employ the raked bows that we are familiar with today, ensuring that much of the energy of a collision is absorbed by the point of the bow above the waterline of the other ship ensuring less damage under the surface.Last survivor
The last survivor of the shipwreck, Grace Hanagan Martyn (born May 16, 1906), died in St. Catharines, OntarioSt. Catharines, Ontario
St. Catharines is the largest city in Canada's Niagara Region and the sixth largest urban area in Ontario, Canada, with 97.11 square kilometres of land...
on 15 May 1995 at the age of 88, one day before her 89th birthday.
Legend of Emmy
The ship's catShip's cat
The ship's cat has been a common sight on many trading, exploration, and naval ships, and is a phenomenon that goes back to ancient times. Cats have been carried on ships for a number of reasons, the most important being to catch mice and rats. These rodents, when aboard, could cause considerable...
Emmy, a loyal orange tabby who had never once missed a voyage, repeatedly tried to escape the ship near departure on 28 May 1914. The crew could not coax her aboard and the Empress departed without her. It was reported that Emmy watched the ship sail away from Quebec City
Quebec City
Quebec , also Québec, Quebec City or Québec City is the capital of the Canadian province of Quebec and is located within the Capitale-Nationale region. It is the second most populous city in Quebec after Montreal, which is about to the southwest...
sitting on the roof of the shed at Pier 27, which would later become a place for the dead pulled from the river after the Empress went down. Apparently, Emmy had anticipated the Empress's demise and thereby chose not to be present.
See also
- CP ShipsCP ShipsCP 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...
- List of ocean liners
- List of ships in British Columbia
- 1914 in Canada1914 in Canada-January to June:* March 19 - The Royal Ontario Museum opens* April 11 - Canadian Margaret C. MacDonald is appointed Matron-in-Chief of the Canadian Nursing service band and becomes the first woman in the British Empire to reach the rank of major....
- List of disasters in Canada
- List of Canadian disasters by death toll
- List of shipwrecks
- List of shipwrecks in 1914
- List of accidents and disasters by death toll
- SS ArcticSS ArcticThe SS Arctic was a 3,000-ton Paddle steamer in the Collins Line steamships. A sister-ship to the SS Pacific that went into service in 1852, the ship was at the time the largest and most splendid of the line and was in operation in the Liverpool packet...
collision - SS Andrea DoriaSS Andrea DoriaSS Andrea Doria[p] was an ocean liner for the Italian Line home ported in Genoa, Italy, most famous for its sinking in 1956, when 46 people died. Named after the 16th-century Genoese admiral Andrea Doria, the ship had a gross register tonnage of 29,100 and a capacity of about 1,200 passengers and...
collision
External links
- The Empress Of Ireland wrecked
- Pursuit of Grace: Aboard the Empress of Ireland, a historical fiction novel written by Salvation Army Staff Band member
- Tales of Tragedy and Triumph: Canadian Shipwrecks, a virtual museum exhibition at Library and Archives Canada
- Swallowed in 14 minutes The story of the Empress of Ireland
- Norway Heritage - The Collision between the SS Empress of Ireland and the SS Storstad
- Pointe-au-Père Maritime Historic Site
- PBS Online - Lost Liners - Empress of Ireland
- The Great Ocean Liners; Empress of Ireland page
- The Empress of Ireland Artifacts Committee
- Lost Liners - Empress of Ireland
- Greatships.net: Empress of Ireland
- Maritimequest Empress of Ireland profile
- Three Pints Gone
- The Empress Of Ireland
- Empress of Ireland home page
- The Whatmore family and a June 13, 1914 article in the paper "War Cry"
