Transport in Southampton Water: Colonials’ first view of “Blighty”

Perhaps the next most important era began with the invention in 1869 of compound engines, and in 1870 the Batavia and Parthia were fitted with these, and proved extremely successful, maintaining good speeds, with a reduced consumption of fuel. The Company was now sailing one vessel under contract with the General Post Office every week from Liverpool to New York, calling at Queenstown, and from New York to Liverpool, also calling at the South Irish port, and receiving a certain subsidy for so doing. They were also maintaining services between Liverpool and the principal ports in the Mediterranean, Adriatic, Levant, Bosphorus, and Black Sea, and between Liverpool and Havre. In 1881 the first steel vessel, the Servia, was built for the Cunard Company. This was the most powerful as well as the largest ship, with the exception of the famous Great Eastern, that the world had then seen. She was followed in 1884 by the Etruria and Umbria, the former of which in August, 1885, set up the record for speed from Queenstown to New York, the journey being accomplished in 6 days 6 hours and 36 minutes. In the meantime, research work, in the construction of marine engines had been continued, and Dr. Price had invented the triple expansion engine, which effected further considerable economies in the consumption of fuel; and these were fitted by the Cunard Company into the two great twin-screw vessels, the Campania and Lucania, built in 1893. With the Campania we shall deal again, as she performed valuable services in the late war, and it is interesting to note that it was on board the Lucania in 1901 that Mr. Marconi carried out certain important experiments in wireless telegraphy, this vessel being the first, under the Cunard management, to be fitted with a wireless installation.

Through all these years the Cunard Company had of course been submitted to very great competition in the transatlantic trade, not only by British lines, but by American and Continental shipping companies also; and in the year 1900 with the Deutschland and in 1902 with the Kaiser Wilhelm II, what has been called the “blue ribbon” of the Atlantic passed to Germany, these vessels having an average speed of 23½ knots. It was then decided that the supremacy in this respect, should, if possible, be regained by Great Britain, and, with Government help, and in return for certain definite prospective services if required, the Cunard Company laid down the Lusitania and the Mauretania. In 1907, these vessels making use of Sir Charles Parsons’ turbine engines, were put into service and soon afterwards attained a speed of over 26 knots, and the mastery, in respect of speed, of the Atlantic.

Canadian troops on “Caronia,” being addressed by their commander

Enormous as were the proportions, however, of these huge vessels, they were yet to be eclipsed by the Cunard Company’s later and most recent giant, the Aquitania, a vessel that might more fitly be described as a floating city of palaces, libraries, art galleries, and swimming baths, than the steamship child of the little Britannia of 1840. Let us for a moment compare them, remembering that only the ordinary span of a human life-time intervened between them. The Britannia was 200 feet long, a wooden paddle-wheel steamer of 1,154 tons, 740 horse-power, and a speed of 8½ knots. The Aquitania is 902 feet long, of 46,000 tons, with quadruple screws driven by turbine engines of a designed shaft of 60,000 horse-power, maintaining a speed of 24 knots. With her Louis XVIth staircase, her garden Lounge, her Adams drawing-room, her frescoes, her Palladian lounge, her Carolean smoking-room, and her Pompeian swimming bath, she can carry in the comfort of a first-class hotel more than 3,200 passengers, together with a crew of over 1,000.

Such then has been what one may best call, perhaps, the technical advance of the Cunard Company, and in 1914, at the commencement of hostilities, it had in commission 26 vessels, apart from tugs, lighters, and other subsidiaries. Of these, since we shall presently deal with their individual adventures, the following list may be found convenient:

Name of Ship.Tonnage.
Gross.
Aquitania45,646
Mauretania30,703
Lusitania30,395
Caronia19,687
Carmania19,524
Franconia18,149
Laconia18,098
Saxonia14,297
Ivernia14,278
Carpathia13,603
Andania13,404
Alaunia13,404
Campania[A]12,884
Ultonia10,402
Pannonia9,851
Ascania9,111
Ausonia8,152
Phrygia3,353
Brescia3,235
Veria3,228
Caria3,032
Cypria2,949
Pavia2,945
Tyria2,936
Thracia2,891
Lycia2,715

[A] This vessel was sold for breaking up a few weeks prior to the outbreak of war. Her career as a warship is referred to in these pages.