Voyage on the Mauretania

By TWAM - Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums (Mauretania - Full speed ahead  Uploaded by Fæ) [No restrictions], via Wikimedia Commons

Recently I took advantage of a sale on the price of an annual subscription to the British Newspaper Archive, and for the past month or so have been making the most of it. I have made many discoveries and been able to nail down the dates of some events for which I previously had only approximations. And then it occurred to me to search for the ships on which some of my ancestors traveled, figuring I could find notices of the arrivals and departures in the shipping news. Though it would supply little to no new information, it would be pretty cool. And for some of the trips, that is exactly what I found. But for my great-grandmother Mary Craig’s trip with her father aboard the Mauretania, there was so much more!

First, there was the not unusual statement of delivery dates of overseas mail:

OUTGOING AMERICAN MAILS.

Letters mailed in Dundee before

1.00 a.m. Sat. 4.30 p.m.

2.50 p.m. Wed. Via Queenstown. Via So hampton.

Per str. Per str. (if specially

addressed). Due in

Date of Posting. New York.

Mar. 2, _____ K. Auguste Victoria. Mar. 10

Mar. 4, Mauretania _____ Mar. 10

(Please forgive the formatting; I could not get it to format properly for the webpage.)

By Snapshots Of The Past (Queenstown. Co. Cork Ireland) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Then, there was some extra news in the customary notice of stopping in the port of Queenstown. (Queenstown, now known as Cobh, was a frequent port of call for ships traveling between Liverpool and the United States.)

SHAMROCK FOR OVERSEAS IRISHMEN.

The Mauretania, which left Queenstown yesterday for New York, took from Queenstown 1312 sacks of mail matter, which included several thousand boxes of shamrock sent by persons in various parts of Ireland to their relatives in the United States and Canada to be worn by the recipients on St Patrick’s Day.

Another article told of a few of the famous personalities that my ancestors were traveling with. It is doubtful they would have met each other, as the celebrities were in first class and my ancestors were in steerage, but perhaps there was some stretching of necks to catch a glimpse.

DEPARTURES FOR AMERICA.

The Cunard liner “Mauretania,” sailed from the Mersey on Saturday for New York, among her passengers being Sir Edward Tennant, who has just been created a baron of the United Kingdom; Count Leo Tolstoi, son of the famous Russian; and Dr. W. T. Grenfell, the Labrador missionary who was received in audience by the King at Buckingham Palace on Friday. Dr. Grenfell, who was accompanied by his wife, will make an American tour before returning to his work in Labrador.

I must admit that the only one of these notable persons whose name is recognizable to me is Leo Tolstoi, and even his name is familiar only because he shares it with his famous father, but it is probably safe to assume that all of these names were familiar to my ancestors.

The newspapers are necessarily silent on the Mauretania for the next couple days, but when it finally docks in New York, it has a story to tell!

MAURETANIA’S ROUGH PASSAGE.

DAMAGED BY HUGE WAVES.

The Mauretania arrived at New York yesterday twelve hours late, after one of the roughest passages she has ever experienced.

The great liner encountered mountainous seas on Monday midnight, and her boat deck bulwarks were bent and twisted, and fifty feet of the forward promenade rail was destroyed by eighty-foot waves. The wheelhouse windows were smashed, and passengers flung from their berths.

Fortunately, however, beyond a few bruises, there were no casualties, and the Cunarder was able to plough her way safely through the storm.

The Shields Daily Gazette told the story in nearly the same words:

ATLANTIC STORM.

Mauretania Badly Damaged.

The Mauretania, says a “Yorkshire Post” New York telegram, arrived there yesterday morning twelve hours late, after one of the roughest passages she has ever experienced. The great liner encountered mountainous seas on Monday midnight, and her boat deck bulwarks were bent and twisted, and fifty feet of the forward promenade rail was destroyed by 80-foot waves. The wheel-house windows were smashed, and passengers flung from their berths. Fortunately, however, beyond a few bruises, there were no casualties, and the Cunarder was able to plough her way safely through the storm.

The Sheffield Daily Telegraph found other words, and supplied a little more information:

TERRIFIC GALE.

MAURETANIA POUNDED BY WAVES.

LINER’S BRIDGE WASHED.

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

NEW YORK, Friday.

The Mauretania, which left Liverpool on the 4th inst., and was due here under normal conditions last night in time to discharge her passengers, did not pass Sandy Hook until this morning—12 hours behind her usual time.

The giant liner ran into a heavy westerly gale on Monday, which increased so that by Monday midnight enormous waves were reaching higher than the bridge.

The gale not only delayed the liner, but caused considerable damage.

On Monday the whole fierceness of the storm seemed turned against the ship, and frequently waves 80 feet in height swept over the weather bow and dashed up to the bridge, falling with thousands of tons weight of water on the deck.

One of the great waves caused the steel boat deck to buckle on the weather side, smashed a portion of the bulwark, and destroyed quite 50 feet of the rail on the forward promenade deck.

It seems that the voyage back to American aboard the Mauretania was much more exciting than Mary and her father John Stephen Craig had bargained for!

Citations (in order cited):

“Outgoing American Mails,” Dundee Courier, 2 Mar 1911, p. 2, col. 3; digital images, The British Newspaper Archive (http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk : accessed 3 Mar 2016), Image © D.C.Thomson & Co. Ltd. Image created courtesy of THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD.

“Shamrock for Overseas Irishmen,” Dundee Courier, 6 Mar 1911, p. 5, col. 2; digital images, The British Newspaper Archive (http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk : accessed 3 Mar 2016), Image © D.C.Thomson & Co. Ltd. Image created courtesy of THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD.

“Departures for America,” Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser, 6 Mar 1911, p. 9, col. 3; digital images, The British Newspaper Archive (http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk : accessed 3 Mar 2016), Image © Local World Limited. Image created courtesy of THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD.

“Mauretania’s Rough Passage,” Nottingham Evening Post, 11 Mar 1911, p. 5, col. 3; digital images, The British Newspaper Archive (http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk : accessed 3 Mar 2016), Image © Local World Limited. Image created courtesy of THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD.

“Atlantic Storm,” Shields Daily Gazette, 11 Mar 1911, p. 3, col. 1; digital images, The British Newspaper Archive (http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk : accessed 3 Mar 2016), With thanks to South Tyneside Libraries and Information. Digitised by Findmypast Newspaper Archive Limited. All rights reserved.

“Terrific Gale,” Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 11 Mar 1911, p. 9, col. 3; digital images, The British History Archive (http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk : accessed 3 Mar 2016), Image © Johnston Press plc. Image created courtesy of THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD.