RMS Empress of Ireland was a British-built ocean liner that sank near the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River in Canada following a collision in thick fog with the Norwegian collier in the early hours of 29 May 1914, en route to Liverpool. Although the ship was equipped with watertight compartments and, in the aftermath of the Titanic disaster two years earlier, carried more than enough lifeboats for all aboard, she foundered in only 14 minutes. Of the 1,477 people on board, 1,012 died, making it the worst peacetime maritime disaster in Canadian history.Cd. 7609, p. 25.
Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering built Empress of Ireland and her sister ship, , at Govan on the Clyde in Scotland. The liners were commissioned by Canadian Pacific Steamships or CPR for the North Atlantic route between Liverpool and Quebec City. The transcontinental CPR and its fleet of ocean liners constituted the company's self-proclaimed "World's Greatest Transportation System". Empress of Ireland had just begun her 96th voyage when she was lost.
The wreck of Empress of Ireland lies in of water, making it accessible to advanced divers. Many artifacts from the wreckage have been retrieved, some of which are on display in the Empress of Ireland Pavilion at the Site historique maritime de la Pointe-au-Père in Rimouski, Quebec, and at the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The Canadian government has passed legislation to protect the site.
Background Empress of Ireland was the second of a pair of ocean liners ordered by Canadian Pacific Steamships during their early years in operation on the North Atlantic. In 1903, Canadian Pacific officially entered the market for trans-Atlantic passenger travel between the United Kingdom and Canada. In February of that year, they had purchased Elder Dempster & Co, through which they obtained three ships from Elder's subsidiary, the Beaver Line. These ships were Lake Champlain, Lake Erie and Lake Manitoba, with Lake Champlain being the first to sail on the company's established route between Liverpool, England and Montreal, Quebec, the following April. The line proved to be successful on the North Atlantic trade, as in that first year, thirty-three westbound crossings were completed by those three ships, on which a combined total of 23,400 passengers travelled in third class, most of them emigrants bound for Canada.
Description and construction
In early 1904 work commenced at Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering in Glasgow, Scotland. The liners were designed by Francis Elgar and were specified to be twin screw liners with service speeds of . Both were of identical appearance, with two funnels and two masts, with equal passenger capacity of just over 1,500. In the early planning stages, their intended names were to have been Empress of Germany and Empress of Austria, but were later changed respectively to Empress of Britain and Empress of Ireland, following the implementation of a policy that any future Canadian Pacific ship named in the Empress format would be respectively named after a dependency or colony of the British Empire.
The ship's keel was laid down on 10 April 1905 for hull number 443 at Fairfield's berth number 4 next to her sister ship, , which was being built. Empress of Irelands length was overall and between perpendiculars. The beam was and her depth was . Empress of Ireland had twin four-bladed propellers, each driven by a quadruple-expansion steam engine. Between them the two engines were rated at 3,168 NHP and gave her a service speed of . She had twin funnels and two masts.
Empress of Irelands safety features included ten watertight bulkheads which divided the hull into eleven compartments which could be sealed off through the means of closing twenty-four watertight doors. All eleven bulkheads extended from the double bottom up to directly beneath the Shelter Deck, equivalent to three decks above the waterline. By design theory, the vessels could remain afloat with up to two adjacent compartments open to the sea. However, what would prove to be the fatal flaw in her design in 1914 was that, unlike aboard where the watertight doors could be closed by the means of a switch on the ship's bridge, the watertight doors aboard Empress of Ireland were required to be closed manually.Renaud, Anne. "Into the Mist: The Story of the Empress of Ireland", p. 77 Also, in the wake of the Titanic disaster, Empress of Ireland, like many other liners, had her lifesaving equipment updated. When she first entered service in 1906, she had been equipped with standard wooden lifeboats, which in 1912 were replaced with sixteen steel lifeboats mounted in conventional radial davits, under which were stored another twenty-six wooden collapsible lifeboats, all of which combined had a capacity of 1,686 people, 280 more than the ship was licensed to carry.
Empress of Ireland was launched on 27 January 1906. With her original configuration she required a crew of 373, and had berths for 1,542 passengers in four classes on seven decks.
Accommodation
Empress of Irelands First Class accommodation, located amidships on the upper and lower promenade and shelter decks, could accommodate 310 passengers when fully booked. Their accommodation included access to the open boat deck and two enclosed promenade decks which wrapped the full exterior of the upper and lower promenade decks. Located on the upper promenade deck was the music room, with built-in sofas and a grand piano encircling one of the ship's most notable features, the glass dome over the first class dining room. Also on this deck was the top landing of the first class main staircase, which as similarly seen aboard Titanic, faced aft and extended down two decks to the entrance of the first class dining room. Located on the lower promenade deck was the First class library, situated at the forward end of the deck with windows overlooking the ship's bow. Amidships was the first class cafe, which was pierced by the two-story well above the first class dining room, while at the aft end of the deck was the first class smoke room. One deck below on the shelter deck was the elegant first class dining room, which could seat 224 passengers in one sitting. In addition, a separate dining room for up to thirty first class children was located at the forward end of the deck. Finally, scattered across all three decks were arrays of two- and four-berth cabins.
The second class accommodation, in the stern on the lower Promenade, shelter, upper and main decks, could accommodate 150 more passengers than in first class, with a designed capacity for 468 in second class when fully booked. They were allotted open deck space at the after end of the lower promenade deck, extending from the after end of the superstructure to beneath the docking bridge at the end of the stern, while one deck below on the shelter deck was located additional deck space sheltered by the deck above. Also on the shelter deck were the second class smoke room, located at the aft end of the deck and designed in a similar but simpler fashion as what was seen in first class, with built-in sofas lining the outer walls and an adjacent bar. At the forward end of the deck, beneath the aft mast was the second class entrance, with a staircase running down two decks to the main deck. Aft of the main landing was the second class social hall, laid out in a fashion similar to the smoke room and provided with a piano, while forward of the entrance was the second class dining room, large enough to seat 256 passengers at one serving. On the starboard side of the upper deck and in the three compartments aft of the engine room casing on the main deck were an array of two and four berth cabins, designed to be interchangeable to both first class and third class. According to the ship's deck plans, cabins for 134 passengers on the upper deck were designed to be converted to first class cabins if needed, while the cabins for 234 passengers on the main deck could simultaneously be converted to be used for third class passengers if needed.
As for emigrants and lower-class travellers, Empress of Ireland was designed with accommodations which symbolised the dramatic shift in immigrant travel on the North Atlantic commonly seen between the turn of the 20th Century and the outbreak of the First World War, that being a general layout which included both the 'old' and 'new' steerage. Combined, these provided accommodation for 764 passengers at the forward end of the ship. Passengers travelling in these two classes had some shared public areas, including access to the forward well deck on the shelter deck, as well as a large open space on the Upper Deck very similar to the open space later seen aboard Titanic. This open space, which spanned the full width of the ship and the length of two watertight compartments, included wooden benches lining the outer walls, and a large children's sand pit enclosed by a wooden fence. At the after end of this space were two smaller public rooms, side by side against the adjacent bulkhead. On the port side was the third class ladies' room, which included a piano, while across on the starboard side was the third class smoke room, complete with an adjacent bar. On the main and lower decks, the accommodations separated, with the 'new' steerage, more commonly referred to as third class, providing for 494 passengers, and the 'old' steerage providing for 270 passengers. Accommodation for Third class consisted of four sections of two, four and six berth cabins, three on the main deck and one on the lower deck, and defined by watertight bulkheads. Directly aft of the section on the main deck was the third class dining room, which was large enough to seat 300 passengers in one sitting. The old steerage consisted of three sections of open berths, one on the main deck and two on the lower deck, all forward of the third class sections. Each section consisted of two-tiered bunks, individual pantries and long wooden tables with benches.
Career Two months after Empress of Britain entered service, Empress of Ireland departed Liverpool for Quebec City on her maiden voyage on Thursday, 29 June 1906. The following morning she made port at Moville, a coastal town on the north coast of Ireland, to pick up a number of Irish immigrants before making for the open Atlantic. On her first trip across the Atlantic she carried 1,257 passengers, with 119 in First Class and 342 in Second Class, and Third Class being booked well past capacity with 796, which included a large number of small children and infants among them.Canadian Passenger Lists, 1865–1935 Seen as a foreshadowing of Empress of Ireland popularity with immigrants, Third Class was so heavily overbooked on her maiden voyage that at least 100 passengers who had booked passage aboard her had to be left behind in Liverpool to wait for the next ship.UK and Ireland, Outward Passenger Lists, 1890-1960