RMS Empress of Britain (1906)
Empress of Britain
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| History | |
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| Name: |
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| Owner: | 1906–1930:  Canadian Pacific Railway
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| Port of registry: | 1891–1914: Canada |
| Builder: | Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company, Govan, Scotland |
| Way number: | 2021 |
| Launched: | 11 November 1905 |
| Maiden voyage: | 5 May 1906 |
| In service: | 1906 |
| Out of service: | 1930 |
| Fate: | Scrapped in 1930 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Ocean liner |
| Tonnage: | 14,189 tons |
| Length: | 458.8 ft. |
| Beam: | 65.7 ft. |
| Installed power: | Two funnels, two masts, twin propellers |
| Propulsion: | Quadruple expansion steam engines |
| Speed: | 18 knots |
| Capacity: |
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RMS Empress of Britain was a transatlantic ocean liner built by Fairfield Shipbuilding at Govan on the Clyde in Scotland in 1905–1906 for Canadian Pacific Steamship (CP). This ship – the first of three CP vessels to be named Empress of Britain – regularly traversed the trans-Atlantic route between Canada and Europe until 1922, with the exception of the war years.
Empress of Britain was built by Fairfield Shipbuilding in their yard at Govan, Glasgow, Scotland. She was launched on 11 November 1905.
The 14,189-ton vessel had an overall length of 570 feet, and her beam was 65.7 feet. The ship had two funnels, two masts, twin propellers and an average speed of 18-knots. The ocean liner provided accommodation for 310 first-class passengers and for 470 second-class passengers. There was also room for 730 third-class passengers.
Empress of Britain left Liverpool on 5 May 1906 on her maiden voyage to Quebec. Thereafter, she was scheduled to sail regularly back and forth on the trans-Atlantic route. In the early days of wireless telegraphy, the call sign established for the Empress of Britain was "MPB."
On her second voyage, Empress of Britain made the west-bound trip from Moville, Ireland, to Rimouski, Canada, in five days, 21 hours, 17 minutes -- a new record, which was a credit to her Captain, James Anderson Murray, and to her shipbuilders. Both Empress of Britain and her sister ship, the ill-fated RMS Empress of Ireland were the fastest ships making the trans-Atlantic run to Canadian ports at the time. In 1914, Empress of Ireland sank in the St. Lawrence River with great loss of life.
Much of what would have been construed as ordinary, even unremarkable during this period was an inextricable part of the ship's history. In the conventional course of transatlantic traffic, the ship was sometimes held in quarantine if a communicative disease was discovered amongst the passengers. Similarly, it would have been expected, for example, that the ship would notify authorities in Halifax that one passenger had died from pneumonia en route to Canada from Europe.
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Wikipedia