The Screw-Propeller.
Most people fail to find much resemblance, if any at all, between that comparatively small-looking two or three-bladed thing that drives the steamship through the water at the rate of twenty miles an hour, and what is commonly known as a screw; but the discrepancy is easy of explanation. Archimedes, who is credited with the invention of the screw as a mechanical lever, little dreamed of the uses to which it was to be turned two thousand years later. He is said to have employed the screw in launching a large ship, pushing it into the water as is now done by hydraulic appliances. By changing his fulcrum and making the screw a part of the ship, the modern engineer has only reversed the mode of applying propelling power; the principle is the same. The effect produced by the screw in propelling a ship will be best understood by supposing an ordinary screw of large dimensions to be revolving rapidly in a trough full of water. It would then send the water away from it with great force; but as action and reaction are equal it would be itself, at the same time, urged in the opposite direction with exactly the same degree of force. If we suppose it, then, to be fixed in a ship, the ship will be pushed forward with the same force that is exerted by the screw in pushing back against the water. If the screw is made to revolve in the opposite direction, the converse of this takes place, and the ship is pushed backwards by the reaction of the screw.[11] The idea has long occupied the attention of inventive genius. As far back as 1746, at least, the capabilities of the screw as a motive power for ships have been tested by experiments. In 1770 James Watt, who had so much to do with perfecting the steam-engine, suggested the use of screw-propellers. In 1815 Trevethick took out a patent for one. Woodcroft did the same in 1826; but it was not until ten years later that its utility was successfully demonstrated.
In 1836 Captain John Ericsson, a Swede, then residing in London, and Mr. T. P. Smith, of the same place, almost simultaneously had each small boats built for the purpose of testing the screw. Ericsson’s boat, named the Francis B. Ogden, was 45 feet long and 8 feet beam, and was fitted with two screw-propellers attached to the same shaft. The first experiment made on the Thames was successful beyond all expectation, for he towed the Admiralty barge, with a number of their Lordships on board, from Somerset House to Blackwall and back, at the rate of ten miles an hour. Smith’s boat was equally successful, the immediate result being the formation of a joint stock company, called the Screwship Propeller Company, who bought out Mr. Smith’s patent and proceeded to build the Archimedes, a vessel of 237 tons, and 80 horse-power. Smith’s original propeller was a genuine screw, with two whole turns of the thread, made to revolve rapidly under water in the dead-wood of the vessel’s run. In the meantime, about 1838, Mr. James Lowe obtained a patent for an important modification of the elongated screw-propeller. This consisted in making use of curved blades, each a portion of a curve, which, if continued, would form a complete screw. The “pitch of the screw ” being the whole length along the spindle shaft of one complete turn of the screw, if fully developed, it was found that by reducing the pitch to a segment of the screw and increasing the diameter, the propeller could be reduced to more convenient dimensions.
The success of the Archimedes at length induced the Admiralty to make trial of the screw in the Royal Navy. The first Rattler was built in 1841, and fitted with a screw-propeller. In 1842 the United States Government made a similar experiment with the Princeton, and in the following year the French Government built the screw war-ship, Pomone.[12] In each case the verdict was favourable to the introduction of the screw in preference to the paddle-wheel. The second Rattler, of 880 tons and 496 horse-power, was built and fitted with a screw-propeller, and attained a speed of 9¼ knots on her trial trip, September 5th, 1851. That settled the question in so far as the Royal Navy was concerned. In the mercantile marine the Great Britain was the first ship of large dimensions in which the screw was adopted. For many years there continued to be a strong prejudice against it, though it was destined eventually to entirely supersede the paddle on the ocean.
In order to prevent the screw “racing,” which often occurs in heavy weather, to the discomfort of passengers and the annoyance of engineers, a system of raising and lowering the propeller has been tried somewhat extensively in the navy and also in the mercantile service, but it has been practically abandoned since the twin screws have come into general use, by which the difficulty alluded to has been largely overcome.
A MYTHICAL WIND-BOAT, FROM AN OLD ENGRAVING (1805).
CHAPTER III.
THE CUNARD LINE AND ITS FOUNDERS.
THIS well-known line takes its name from Samuel Cunard (afterwards Sir Samuel), a native of Halifax, Nova Scotia, who had for some time been conducting the mail service between Halifax, Boston, Newfoundland and Bermuda, and who had long been revolving in his mind the idea of establishing a regular line of ocean mail steamers, but could not find the necessary financial backing in his native country. Proceeding to Britain, Mr. Cunard fortunately fell in with Robert Napier, the famous Clyde ship-builder and engineer, who entered heartily into his proposals and introduced him to George Burns (afterwards Sir George), one of the foremost men in shipping circles at that time, and a man of large means. Through him Mr. Cunard was introduced to David MacIver, of Liverpool, who was of a kindred spirit. The result before long was a partnership of these three with a subscribed capital of £270,000 sterling, and the obtaining of a contract with the British Government for seven years to institute and maintain a steam service from Liverpool to Halifax and Boston, twice a month during eight months of the year and once a month in winter, for an annual subsidy of £60,000. Subsequent stipulations made by the Admiralty were accompanied by an increase of the subsidy to £80,000. At the end of seven years the contract was renewed, but for a weekly service in summer, and twice a month in winter. Saturday then became the regular day of sailing from Liverpool, and New York was adopted as one of the American termini. In 1848, when it was found that a weekly service was required, the subsidy was increased to £156,000 per annum. In 1860, to facilitate the despatch of the mails, the boats began to call at Queenstown both going out and returning home, as they still continue to do. In January, 1868, a new mail contract came into operation, under which the Cunard Line received £70,000 a year for a direct weekly service to New York. In the following year Halifax was left out of the programme, although a separate branch line continued to run to Boston as it still does.
“BRITANNIA,” FIRST OF THE CUNARD LINE, 1840.
The original name of the company was “The British and North American Royal Mail Steam-Packet Company,” but it soon took the less cumbrous title of “The Cunard Steamship Company, Limited.” The Cunard Line commenced its service from Liverpool to North America on the anniversary of American Independence, the 4th of July, 1840, superseding as mail-carriers the ten-gun sailing brigs of earlier days.[13]
THE “NIAGARA,” AS A TRANSPORT IN 1855.
The first fleet consisted of four side-wheel steamers, each 207 feet long, 34⅓ feet beam and 22½ feet deep. Their wooden hulls were constructed by four different builders on the Clyde—the Acadia by John Wood, the Britannia by Robert Duncan & Co.; the Caledonia by Charles Wood, and the Columbia by Robert Steele. All four were built after the same model, closely resembling that of the Great Western. They were all supplied with engines of the side-lever type, by Robert Napier & Sons, 403 horse-power, nominal, with cylinders of 72½ inches diameter and 82 inches stroke. They burned about forty-four tons of coal per day, and carried a steam pressure of 9 pounds to the square inch. The Britannia, commanded by Captain Woodruff, R.N., sailed on her first westward voyage on July 4th, and after calling at Halifax, reached Boston on the 19th, having made the passage in 14 days, 8 hours, including detention at Halifax. So great was the enthusiasm in Boston, it is said that Mr. Cunard, who had come out in the Britannia, received eighteen hundred invitations to dinner during the first twenty-four hours of his stay in the city! From that time until now the service has been maintained with marvellous regularity, and the line has an unrivalled reputation for safety. During all these intervening years the ships of the Cunard Line have crossed and recrossed the stormy Atlantic without the loss of a single life. In the early days of the service, the Unicorn, formerly of the Glasgow and Liverpool Line, plied between Quebec and Pictou, N.S., in connection with the Atlantic steamers, and is said to have been the first transatlantic steamer to reach Boston, on June 2nd, 1840. The Unicorn was commanded by Captain Walter Douglas—a great favourite with his passengers—and the boat was a very fine one indeed.
The second contract, calling for weekly sailings, necessitated a larger fleet of steamers. To meet this demand four new ships were built, and took their places on the line in 1848, namely, the America, Niagara, Canada and Europa. Each of these was 251 feet long, of 1,800 tons burthen and 750 horse-power. They had an average speed of 10½ knots an hour. And so, from time to time, as the exigencies of trade and the need for enlarged passenger accommodation demanded, fresh additions were made to the fleet, each succeeding ship surpassing its predecessors in size, equipment and speed. The Persia, built in 1856, was the first of the iron boats: the Scotia, in 1862, was the last of the paddle-wheel steamers. They were both very fine ships of 3,300 and 3,871 tons, respectively, accounted the best specimens of marine architecture then afloat. The China, launched in 1862, was the first Cunard single-screw steamer. She was followed, in 1867, by the Russia, the queen of ocean steamers in her day. Passing a number of intervening ships, we come, in 1881, to the Servia, the first of the line built of steel—a magnificent vessel, 515 feet long, 7,392 tons, 9,900 horse-power, and attaining a speed of 16.7 knots.
In the meantime important changes had been transpiring in the constitution of the Cunard Company and its environment. The original shareholders had been by degrees bought out by the founders, so that the whole concern was vested in the three families of Cunard, Burns, and MacIver. Sir Samuel attended to the business in London, Mr. Burns in Glasgow, and Mr. MacIver in Liverpool, and never was any business better managed than by these men and their successors. In 1878 it was deemed expedient to consolidate the interests of the partners by the formation of a joint stock company with a capital of £2,000,000 sterling. The three families interested in the concern took up £1,200,000 in paid-up shares. No shares, however, were offered to the public until 1880, when a prospectus was issued, setting forth the necessity for additional steamships of the most improved type, involving a large outlay of money. The shares were readily bought up and measures were taken to increase the efficiency of the fleet, which had become at length imperative owing to the keen competition of rival lines. This was inevitable.
THE “SCOTIA,” LAST OF CUNARD PADDLE-STEAMSHIPS, 1862.
The manifest success of the Cunard Company could not long continue without exciting competition, and this followed in due course from a variety of quarters; nor was it to be expected that they should easily hold the supremacy of the sea against all new-comers. They had, in fact, to contend vigorously for their laurels, and at successive intervals had to retire into the second rank, but their determination to regain and hold, at whatever cost, the championship has been well illustrated in the newer ships of the line. The Umbria and Etruria, steel ships launched in 1884, having cost nearly two millions of dollars each, were a decided advance upon any steamers then afloat. They are 500 feet long, 57 feet 3 inches wide, and 40 feet in depth; they are of 8,127 tons, 14,500 horse-power and are equal to a speed of 19½ knots an hour. They have ample accommodation for 550 first-class passengers and 800 steerage. Each of them has made the run from Queenstown to New York (2,782 knots) in less than six days. In nine consecutive voyages the Etruria (in 1885) maintained an average speed of 18 knots. Her fastest voyage, however, from Queenstown to New York, was made in August, 1897, when she was thirteen years old—namely, 5 days, 21 hours and 10 minutes actual time, the average speed during the voyage being about 20 knots.
THE “CAMPANIA,” AT LIVERPOOL LANDING-STAGE.
It helps one to understand the enormous cost of such vessels when it is stated that the single screw-propeller weighs about thirty-nine tons and costs $25,000! Splendid as was the record of these crack Cunarders, they were surpassed by ships of the White Star and Inman Lines. Something had to be done. An order was given to the Fairfield Ship-building and Engineering Company on the Clyde to build two steel twin-screw express steamships that should surpass all previous efforts. The result was the Campania and Lucania, launched at Govan in September, 1892, and February, 1893, respectively. These sister ships are splendid specimens of marine architecture. They are each 620 feet long, 65¼ feet beam, and 43 feet in depth. Their gross tonnage is 12,950 tons; their twin screws are driven by triple expansion engines of 30,000 indicated horse-power. Each engine has five cylinders and three cranks. The low-pressure cylinders have the enormous diameter of 8 feet 2 inches; the two high-pressure cylinders are 37 inches in diameter, and the intermediate are 79 inches, with a stroke of 5 feet 9 inches. They are arranged tandem fashion, with a high-pressure cylinder over a low-pressure cylinder, one at each end, and the intermediate in the centre. At eighty revolutions (their normal speed) this enormous weight is moved about 2,000 feet per minute. The crank shaft is twenty-six inches in diameter, and each of the three interchangeable parts weighs twenty-seven tons. The propeller shaft is twenty-four inches in diameter, fitted in lengths of twenty-four feet, each length having two bearings. The bossing out of the stern, as in the Teutonic and Majestic, permits the screws to work without any exterior overhanging bracket, as in other screw steamers. The central boss of the propeller is made of steel; the three blades, weighing eight tons each, are of manganese bronze. A new feature in the machinery is what is called an “emergency governor,” which, in case of the shaft breaking, or the screw racing from any other cause beyond a certain speed, is designed to act automatically on the reversing gear and stop the engines. These gigantic engines are started and reversed by steam. Their height from the base to the top of the cylinders is no less than forty-seven feet. There are twelve large boilers, with four furnaces at each end, and made to stand a pressure of 165 lbs. to the square inch. The two funnels are each twenty feet in diameter, and rise to a height of 130 feet above the floor of the ship. The rudder is one large plate of steel, 22 x 11½ feet in area and 1½ inches thick. With the steering gear it weighs forty-five tons! On her maiden voyage from New York to Liverpool the Campania eclipsed all previous records, making the run to Queenstown, by the long route (2,896 knots), in 5 days, 17 hours, 27 minutes. Her fastest eastern passage has been 5 days, 9 hours, 18 minutes, and westward, 5 days, 9 hours, 6 minutes. She has run 548 knots in twenty-four hours, and maintained an average speed of 21.82 knots an hour throughout an entire voyage.
Wonderful as the performances of the Campania have been, they are surpassed by her sister ship. The Lucania made the western voyage, from Queenstown to New York, arriving October 27th, 1894, in 5 days, 7 hours, 23 minutes, the fastest voyage between these points yet made. Her daily runs on that occasion were, 529, 534, 533, 549, 544, 90—total knots, 2,779. Her fastest eastward voyage (up to July, 1897) has been 5 days, 8 hours, 38 minutes; her best average speed throughout a voyage was 22.1 knots an hour, and her highest day’s running is 560 knots. The arrival and departure of these steamers at the Liverpool landing-stage has come to be anticipated with almost as much exactitude as that of our best regulated railways. The mails which they carry from New York on Saturday morning are usually delivered in Liverpool on the following Friday afternoon, and letters from London are delivered in Montreal in seven days. By arrangement with the Admiralty, and in consideration of an annual subvention of £19,000, the Lucania and Campania are held at the disposal of the Government whenever their services may be required as armed cruisers. Other ships of this line are also at the disposal of the Admiralty without any specified subsidy.
Changes and improvements of very great importance to the travelling community have taken place within the last few years, not only in regard to the ocean steamships, but also in regard to facilities for embarkation and landing, and this very largely owing to the lively competition of Southampton and the inducements which it has to offer as a shipping port. The dredging of the bar at the mouth of the Mersey, so as to admit of sea-going vessels entering the port at any state of the tide, is not the least important of the changes referred to. Until quite recently ocean steamers had frequently to come to anchor six or eight miles from the mouth of the river, and wait outside for hours till the tide would rise. That obstruction has been removed, and now the largest steamers can cross the bar at almost any state of the tide. But that is not all. The tedious and discomfortable method of being conveyed from ship to shore in a “tender” has also been done away with. The wonder is that it was submitted to so long. The ocean steamship on her arrival at Liverpool is now brought alongside the landing-stage, and instead of being obliged to drive in a cab or omnibus across the city a mile or more to the railway station for London or elsewhere, the railway and the station have come down to the water’s edge, and you pass at once from the ship to the railway train, and immediately proceed on your journey. Passengers for New York may leave Euston Station, London, at noon by a special train of the London and North Western Railway, and find themselves on the landing-stage at Liverpool at 4.15 p.m., the run of over two hundred miles being made, perhaps, without a stoppage—looking for their luggage, as Englishmen are accustomed to do, and astonished to learn that, by some occult system of handling, and, most strange of all, without a “tip,” it is already on board the ship!
Each of these ships is designed to carry six hundred first-class and over one thousand second and third-class passengers. The accommodation provided for them are of the most elaborate description. No expense has been spared in the internal fittings of the ships. Everything that science and skill and refined taste could suggest has been brought into requisition. A more facile pen than ours describes the public rooms, as we call them, as follows, in terms by no means too appreciative: “The dining saloon is a vast, lofty apartment near the middle of the ship, one hundred feet long, sixty-two feet broad, and ten feet high, capable of seating at dinner 430 passengers in their revolving armchairs. The decorations are highly artistic. The ceiling is panelled in white and gold, the sides in Spanish mahogany, and the upholstering is in a dark, rich red, figured frieze velvet, with curtains to match. There are nooks and corners where small parties may dine in complete seclusion. The forty side-lights are of unusual size. Fresh air is admitted by patent ventilators in the roughest weather. For lighting, as well as ventilation, there is an opening in the ceiling in the centre of the room, 24 x 16 feet, surmounted by a dome of stained glass reaching a height of thirty-three feet above the floor. The drawing-room is a splendid apartment, 60 x 30 feet. The walls are ornamented with satin wood, richly carved. The furniture is upholstered in rich velvets and brocades. In the cosy fireplace there is a brass grate and a hearth laid with Persian tiles. The ceiling is in pine, decorated in light tones, old ivory prevailing, with not too much gilding. A Grand piano and an American organ are also provided. The library, 29 x 24 feet, is very ornate. It is suitably furnished with writing tables and writing materials, and a handsome book-case filled with a choice selection of books. The smoking-room, 40 x 32 feet, is decorated in the Scottish baronial style. The whole tone of the room is suggestive of otium cum dignitate. The ordinary staterooms are lofty and well ventilated, with cunning devices for the saving of room and making things look pleasant and comfortable. Then there are suites of rooms elaborately furnished with tables and bedsteads and bath-rooms, and every conceivable luxury of that sort, for those who are able and willing to pay for them.” The accommodation for second-class passengers is in keeping with that for the first. These, too, have their elegant dining-room, and drawing-room, and smoking-room. Even the third-class can rejoice with their neighbours in “the comforts of smoke.”
One of these ships, when carrying her full complement of passengers, will start on her voyage provisioned somewhat on this scale: 20,000 lbs. of fresh beef, 1,000 lbs. of corned beef, 10,000 lbs. of mutton, 1,400 lbs. of lamb, 500 lbs. of veal, 500 lbs. of pork, 3,500 lbs. of fresh fish, 1,000 fowls—400 chickens, 250 ducks and geese, 100 turkeys, 30 tons of potatoes, 30 hampers of vegetables, 18,000 eggs, 6,000 lbs. of ham, 3,000 lbs. of butter, etc., etc.; 13,650 bottles of ale and porter, 6,650 bottles of mineral waters, 1,600 bottles of wines and spirits, are frequently consumed on a single voyage.
The various vessels of the Cunard fleet between them carry on an average 110,000 passengers per annum, besides 600,000 tons of merchandise and 50,000 carcases of dead meat in refrigerators, over a distance of one million miles annually. The Campania and Lucania, owing to the large space occupied by their machinery, only carry about 1,600 tons of freight each.
The order and discipline on board a Cunard liner is that of a man-of-war. The vessels have been built under a special survey, and combine in their construction the best known appliances, in cases of fire, collision, or any other marine contingency, for the safety of the ship and its living freight. The watertight bulkheads are sixteen in number, and will enable the ship to float with any two or even three of the compartments filled with water. The life-boat equipment and service is ample and thoroughly organized. In short, everything is made subservient to safety.
Some idea of the cost of running vessels of this size and speed may be formed when it is stated that the daily average consumption of coal is nearly four hundred tons, but when urged to utmost speed it would be nearer five hundred tons. The crew, all told, number about 424, of whom 195 are required to attend to the engines and boilers alone. In the sailing department, from the captain to the lamplighter, about sixty-five; in the steward’s department, including 8 stewardesses, about 120, and in the cook’s department, about 45. These 424 persons must be paid and fed at a cost of from $12,000 to $15,000 a month. Each of the ships must have cost over $3,000,000, the interest upon which, at four per cent., is $120,000 per annum; add the enormous cost of provisioning the ship for perhaps six hundred cabin passengers, who, for the most part, expect to fare more sumptuously every day they are on board than they do at home; and one thousand intermediate and steerage passengers, who must live like fighting-cocks; then estimate, if you can, the cost of insurances, agencies, advertising, port charges, pilotage; write off a reasonable percentage for wear and tear; these put together represent an amount so formidable as to leave a very slender margin for profits. At the last annual meeting of the shareholders a dividend of 2½ per cent. for the year 1897 was declared, which was considered a good showing.
Since 1840 the Cunard Company have employed no less than fifty-six first-class passenger steamships in the Atlantic service alone. The entire fleet at present consists of thirty-three ships, with a total tonnage of 124,124, and 153,732 horse-power, and maintains regular communication from Liverpool to New York, Boston, France and almost every country in the Mediterranean. Excepting some of the ships acquired by purchase, all the others were built to order on the Clyde. In all these fifty-eight years the Cunard Company has only lost three ships. Through the mistake of her pilot, the Columbia, one of the first Atlantic fleet, ran ashore during a fog near Cape Sable, N.S., in July, 1843, and became a total wreck, but her mails and passengers were safely landed. In 1872 the Tripoli, of the Mediterranean Line, was wrecked on the Tuskar Rocks in St. George’s Channel, half-way between Cork and Dublin, but no lives were lost. In 1886 the company met with its severest loss by the sinking of the magnificent steamship Oregon, recently purchased from the Guion Company. Early in the morning of the 4th of March she was run into by an unknown sailing vessel when about fifty miles from New York, and such were the injuries she sustained she gradually filled with water and went to the bottom, not, however, before the whole ship’s company, numbering 995 souls were safely transferred to the Fulda of the North German Lloyd Line, which fortunately came up to the scene of the disaster in the nick of time. Her bulkheads should have saved her from going under, and would have done so, but for some unexplained obstruction to the closing of a watertight door. As it was, the bulkheads kept her afloat long enough to save the lives of all on board.
Among the famous captains in the forties were C. H. E. Judkins, James Stone, William Harrison, Ed. G. Lott, Theodore Cook, Captain Moodie, and James (afterwards Sir James) Anderson who commanded the Great Eastern on some of her cable-laying expeditions. Captain Harrison was the first commander of the Great Eastern, and was drowned in the Solent when going ashore from his ship in a dingy. Captain Judkins was born at Chester in 1811; he entered the Cunard service in 1840 as chief officer of the SS. Acadia: was appointed commander of the Britannia that same year, and was successively master of the Hibernia, Canada, Persia and Scotia. He lived to be Commodore of the fleet and retired from the sea in 1871, after having made more than five hundred voyages across the Atlantic without any serious accident, and being able to say that the Cunard Company at that date had lost neither a life nor a letter. Captain Judkins died in 1876. He was a typical British sailor. He could be exceedingly gracious, and when the mood struck him he could be gruff. I remember making a voyage with him on the Hibernia in 1843, on which occasion he ran across from Halifax to Liverpool under a cloud of canvas, with studding sails set low and aloft most of the time, a dense fog all the way, but he picked up his pilot off Cape Clear, just where he expected to find him, and went snoring up the Channel, growling like a bear at the captain of a Dublin steamer who would not get out of his way, and whom in his wrath he threatened to send to “Davie Jones’ locker.” The voyage was made in nine days and a half, I think, which was accounted a marvellous run in those days. Captain Lott was one of the most genial of men and very popular. He, too, was banqueted on the completion of his five hundredth trip. It has been said of him that his good nature was occasionally ruffled when liberties, unconsciously or otherwise, were taken with his name; as, for example, when a worthy minister officiating on board took for his text, “Remember Lot’s wife”; and again, when a rough sailor complained in his hearing that his pork was “as salt as Lot’s wife.”
Sailors, as a rule, are not given to talk shop, and are quick to resent idle talk in others. The story is told of Captain Theodore Cook that one day when taking his noon observation, a cloud interrupted his vision. Just then a passenger coming along said with a patronizing air, “Captain Cook, I’m afraid that cloud prevented you from making your observation.” “Yes, sir,” replied the potentate of the sea, “but it did not prevent you making yours.”[14]
At the time of the “Trent Difficulty,” as it was called, in 1861, the Australasian and the Persia of the Cunard Line were chartered by the British Government to bring out troops to Canada. On the 4th of December orders were received to prepare the Australasian with all speed for this service; her fittings were completed on the 10th, she took in her coal on the 11th, and sailed on the 13th with the 60th Rifles. On the 5th of the same month similar orders were received for the Persia, which sailed on the 16th with 1,180 troops, consisting of 1st Battalion of the 16th Regiment and a detachment of sappers. Captain Cook, of the Australasian, having encountered much ice in the entrance to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, had to turn back, and took his ship to Halifax and thence to St. John, New Brunswick, where he landed his contingent. Judkins, on the other hand, brought the Persia right up to Bic and landed his men, but, the ice threatening to keep him there, he quickly bolted for the open sea, leaving his boats behind him!
Of the more recent commanders, Captain W. H. P. Haines, late of the Campania and Commodore of the Cunard fleet, may be instanced as a good specimen. A born sailor he may be called, inasmuch as he is a native of Plymouth, whose father and grandfather before him followed the sea and who himself has been sailing for nearly fifty years and counts 592 voyages across the Atlantic. Captain Haines has always been as noted for caution as for skill. It is said of him that “whatever temptation there might be to make a fast passage, he would never neglect to take soundings, nor rely on any patent apparatus, without repeatedly fortifying its results by stopping his ship to get up and down casts with the ordinary lead.”
To guard against the risks of collision with other vessels, the Cunard steamers follow prescribed routes laid out for them, by which the ships, both outward and homeward bound, are kept at a respectable distance. In estimating the runs of the Atlantic liners from Liverpool to New York and return, Daunt’s Rock, off Queenstown, and the Sandy Hook lightship, twenty-six knots from New York, are regarded as the points of departure and arrival; but as Daunt’s Rock is about 244 knots from Liverpool, it follows that, to complete the voyage, a full half day’s run must be added to the record as usually announced. It is also to be remembered that the day at sea is longer or shorter according to the speed of the ship. On a twenty-knot vessel going east the average length of day is about 23 hours and 10 minutes; going westward it is about 24 hours and 50 minutes. The difference of time between Greenwich and New York is about five hours.
CUNARD TRACK CHART.
The “express steamers,” as the fast ships are now called, of the Cunard Line at present are the Campania, Lucania, Etruria and Umbria. These four constitute the weekly mail service, sailing every Saturday from Liverpool and New York. The Aurania, Servia and other vessels perform a fortnightly service from the same ports, sailing on Tuesdays. Five steamers are employed in maintaining a weekly service between Liverpool and Boston, and about a dozen more are required for the service between Liverpool, France and the Mediterranean.
The story of the Cunard Company would be incomplete without at least a brief reference to its three founders, Messrs. Cunard, Burns and MacIver, and Mr. Napier, the engineer, who was so closely identified with them.
THE FOUNDERS OF THE CUNARD LINE.
The late Sir Samuel Cunard was a son of Abraham Cunard, a merchant in Philadelphia, and a Quaker, whose ancestors had come to America from Wales in the seventeenth century, and who removed to Halifax, Nova Scotia. There Sir Samuel was born, November 21st, 1787. His parents were not in affluent circumstances; indeed he has been heard to tell that, when a boy, he often went about the streets with a basket on his arm selling herbs that were grown in his mother’s garden, to earn “an honest penny.” In course of time, however, he became a prosperous merchant and the owner of whaling-ships that sailed from Halifax to the Pacific Ocean. How he came to identify himself with the Atlantic mail service has already been mentioned, and little else remains to be said about him. He was small of stature, but a man of rare intelligence; a keen observer of men and things, and who had the faculty, largely developed, of influencing other men. In private life he was one of the most gentle and lovable of men. He married, in 1815, a daughter of Mr. W. Duffus, of Halifax, by whom he had nine children. On March 9th, 1859, Her Majesty, on the recommendation of Lord Palmerston, made him a Baronet, in recognition of his services to the realm and to other countries in promoting the means of inter-communication. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 1846. He died in London, April 28th, 1865, leaving, it is said, a fortune of £350,000. His title and his interest in the business were inherited by his eldest son, Sir Edward Cunard, at whose decease, in 1869, the reins of administration fell into the hands of his brother William, who married a daughter of the late celebrated Judge Haliburton, of Nova Scotia, and who now represents the company in London.
Sir George Burns was, in many respects, a remarkable man. He was born in the Holy Land, a name popularly given to a “land” of houses in Glasgow, in which five ministers resided, one of them being his father, the Rev. John Burns, D.D., of the old Barony parish, who ministered in that place for seventy-two years, and who died at the patriarchal age of ninety-six. George was born in 1795. He commenced business in Glasgow with his brother James, under the firm of G. & J. Burns & Co., a name that has ever since been famous in shipping circles. They began steam navigation to Liverpool and Belfast over seventy years since, and gradually built up a large and lucrative business. Many years ago Mr. Burns retired and took up his residence at Wemyss Bay, on the estuary of the Clyde, where he spent the evening of his days, and was frequently seen sitting among his rhododendrons and laurels, watching his steamers as they coursed up and down the Firth. He was created a Baronet in his old age, May 24th, 1889. He died on the 2nd of June in the following year, being succeeded by his son, Sir John Burns, of Castle Wemyss, who is chairman of the Board of Directors of the Cunard Steamship Company. Sir John’s elevation to the peerage, at the time of Her Majesty’s Diamond Jubilee, when he assumed the name of Lord Inverclyde, was regarded as a well-merited honour by his countrymen, and in shipping circles generally.
Although he was a son of the “Father of the Church of Scotland,” Sir George early in life contracted a liking for the liturgical service of the Church of England, and eventually became an Episcopalian. “Sir George Burns, Bart.: His Times and Friends, by Edwin Hodder; Hodder and Stoughton, London,” is the title of an admirable biography in which is to be found a fine portraiture of a man “diligent in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.” As a business man he is described as “honourable in the minutest particulars, accurate in all his dealings, faithful to every trust, tenacious of every promise, disdaining to take the least advantage of the weakness or incapacity of any man.” There is also much information in this volume, bearing on the history of the Cunard Line, that is valuable and interesting, and of which we have freely availed ourselves in compiling these pages.
David MacIver, a Scotchman, as his name implies, had lived a good many years in Liverpool before his connection with the Cunard Company, and had acquired a great deal of valuable experience in shipping affairs. His first intercourse with Burns was somewhat singular in the light of their future alliance. It was as the agent of an opposition line of steamers, plying between Liverpool and Glasgow, that their friendship began. A Manchester firm had started an opposition line, but they were no match for G. and J. Burns, who eventually bought them out, and secured a monopoly of the trade, except the small steamer Enterprise, for which David MacIver was agent, and which the same firm cleverly bought also. Not to be outdone, MacIver succeeded in organizing the “New City of Glasgow Steam-Packet Company,” of which he became the Liverpool agent. Determined, if possible, to drive his rivals from the seas, it is said that he used to sail in the vessels himself, urging his officers to increased speed. But it was of no use; the new company were soon glad to accept offers for amalgamation, and from that time MacIver and Burns became fast friends. Mr. MacIver had first-rate executive ability, and as most of the working details devolved upon him, he had a controlling influence in the Cunard Line while he lived. The well-known firm of D. & C. MacIver were the managers of the line at Liverpool, from its formation until the year 1883, when they resigned, a Board of Directors assuming the entire control of affairs. David MacIver, however, had died in 1845, when the Liverpool agency fell into the hands of his brother and partner, Charles, whose able supervision continued for thirty-five years.
Robert Napier was born at Dumbarton in 1791. After serving his apprenticeship as millwright and smith, he went to Edinburgh, where he wrought at his trade for some time, earning ten shillings a week. Inspired by the old Scotch motto, “He that tholes overcomes,” he stuck to it. Later, he entered the service of Robert Stephenson, the celebrated engineer, and made his mark as a mechanical genius. At twenty-four years of age he commenced business on his own account, in Glasgow, where he gradually built up the large engineering and ship-building business subsequently carried on under the name of Robert Napier & Sons. The “Lancefield Works” and his Govan shipyards attained world-wide celebrity. He constructed the machinery for the SS. British Queen, and for the first four Cunard steamers, and for many others in later years. He also received large orders for warships and transports from the British Admiralty and from foreign governments. He built several large ironclads for the Royal Navy. He made the engines for the great three-decker, Duke of Wellington—all but the last of the “wooden walls.” He built and engined the famous Cunarders Persia and Scotia.
ROBERT NAPIER AND MRS. NAPIER.
Mr. Napier erected a princely mansion on the Gareloch, named Shandon House, where his declining years were spent in retirement, but in the exercise of unbounded hospitality, as the writer can testify from his personal experience. Shandon House came to be like a museum containing a rare collection of pictures and antiquities from almost all parts of the world. Among his curios none was more highly prized than his mother’s spinning-wheel, and the painting that he valued the most was the portrait of his wife plying the same old-fashioned spinning-wheel, with which she had been familiar from girlhood. Does it not seem like the “irony of fate,” and a melancholy commentary on the transitory nature of everything mundane, that this marvellous accumulation of articles of virtu was, shortly after Mr. Napier’s death, sold by public auction to the highest bidder, and that his palatial residence passed into the hands of a hydropathic company?
Having said so much about the Cunard Line, there is no need to dwell at similar length upon any of the other transatlantic lines of steamers. The history of the Cunard Line is the history of Atlantic steam navigation. It commenced at a time when steam power had only been used as an auxiliary to sails, but when that order of affairs was soon to be reversed. The intervening years have witnessed the transition from wooden ships to iron, and from iron to steel; from the paddle-wheel to the single screw-propeller, and then to the twin-screw; from the simple side-lever engines to the compound, and from the compound to the triple and quadruple expansion engines of the present time. These successive changes, common to all the other important lines of ocean steamers, have resulted in greatly increased speed with economy of fuel. But no one at all conversant with the subject supposes that the limit in either of these directions has been reached. Her Majesty’s torpedo boats can easily reel off their thirty knots an hour; why not an express steamer?
The competition for the supremacy of the sea in these latitudes has been both keen and costly, but greatly to the benefit of the travelling community; and it has all along been conducted in an excellent spirit. Circumstances have frequently arisen when it might have been easy to take advantage of a rival, but when it resulted in acts of chivalry. Sir John Burns has mentioned one instance out of many such that have transpired: On a certain occasion the Cunard steamer Alps was seized in New York for an alleged infraction of the Customs laws on the part of some of the crew, and before she could be released, security had to be given to the extent of £30,000 sterling; when, “who should come forward and stand security for the Cunard Company but the great firm of Brown, Shipley & Co., the agents of the Collins Line!” Another case in point is connected with the foundering of the Cunard SS. Oregon. When the whole of the passengers and crew, to the number of nearly a thousand, had been taken off the sinking ship, and landed in New York by the North German Lloyd SS. Fulda, the question having been asked what compensation was demanded, the courteous reply was speedily received: “Highly gratified at having been instrumental in saving so many lives. No claim!”[15]
The Fairfield Ship-building and Engineering Company is one of the most famous of the many eminent ship-building firms in Britain. The yards at Govan on the Clyde occupy an area of sixty acres of ground, and employ from 6,000 to 7,000 men. The shops are fitted with machinery of the most approved description, in which every requisite of marine architecture has a place, where massive plates of steel and iron are clipped, shaped and pierced with rivet holes as if they were only sheets of wax or paper. Here have been built many of the record-breaking ocean greyhounds, as well as armour-plated cruisers for the Royal Navy. The Arizona, the Alaska and the Oregon were built here, and were accounted marvels in their day. The Umbria and Etruria, the Campania and the Lucania have secured for Fairfield a world-wide reputation. Ships for Sir Donald Currie’s Castle Line, for the Orient and the Hamburg-American lines, not to speak of the Isle of Man steamers, the swiftest coasting steamers of the day, have been built at Govan. Under the name of Randolph, Elder & Company the firm was founded, or rather reconstructed, by the late Mr. John Elder, a man of consummate ability in his profession, who died in 1869 at the early age of forty-five years.
The compound engine, by which steam is made to do double duty, is one of the most important of recent improvements in marine engineering, being the means of largely increasing the motive power and decreasing the consumption of fuel. The successful application of this system to ocean steam navigation is usually attributed to Mr. John Elder, of the above-named firm, who introduced it in some of the steamers of the Pacific Steam Navigation Company as early as 1856.[16] But it did not come into general use until some years later. The Admiralty, recognizing the importance claimed for the discovery, resolved to test its value, in 1863, by sending three ships of similar size on a voyage from Plymouth to Madeira, two of them being fitted with the ordinary engines of the day, and the third, the Constance, with Elder’s compound engine. The result placed the superiority of the compound engine beyond question, and led up to the triple and quadruple expansion engine which has revolutionized the ship-building and shipping interests; hence the enormous cargoes carried by ships of the Pennsylvania type, with a moderate consumption of fuel and the lowering of ocean freight rates.
Before taking leave of the Cunard Line, it may not be out of place to mention that an employee of that line has the distinction of having crossed the Atlantic more frequently than any other man. One is apt to think of his own voyages—thirty-five or forty—as a tolerably fair showing, but that is as nothing compared with other landsmen. On one occasion the writer sat next to a fine old French gentleman from Quebec who was then making his hundredth voyage; he was an octogenarian. Some years later a Montreal merchant, nearly a quarter of a century younger, informed me that he had crossed the ocean one hundred and eighty times! Taking his years into account, surely he must be entitled to wear the blue ribbon. As to sailors, an English newspaper recently offered a prize of £10 to the man who could prove that he had crossed the Atlantic oftenest. The prize was awarded to Captain Brooks, of Alaska, who had made seven hundred trips. In the meantime, however, it transpired that the distinction was due to another “old salt,” whose record far outran that of Captain Brooks, but whose modesty prevented him from applying for the prize. The real champion is George Paynter, well known throughout England and America as “the Old Man of the Sea,” who recently completed his eight hundred and fourth voyage across the Atlantic. Paynter is the officer in charge of the wines and liquors on board the SS. Etruria. He is one of the most remarkable men afloat to-day. He has been forty-eight years at sea, of which forty-five have been spent continuously in the service of the Cunard Company, and in all that time he has never encountered either a shipwreck or a cyclone. He is now seventy-five years old, hale and hearty as ever, and this he attributes to his having given up smoking and drinking thirty-one years ago, not having once indulged in either from that time until now.