The Ship Beautiful

From 1907 Cunard enjoyed great success with Lusitania and Mauretania but planned for another ship on the express route to be built later.  In June 1911, as rival White Star Line’s Olympic entered service, the keel was laid for the third express turbine powered steamer.  Cunard was concerned about competition from the larger ships and decided to build a larger and more luxurious vessel than the Olympic-class.  This time, they were not designing a ship for speed.  The new ship was named Aquitania and it would be one of the most beloved and enduring liners.  Few could imagine when she was launched in 1913 that she would serve in two world wars and sail until 1950- an extraordinary long career for an ocean liner.

 Aquitania in harbor.  Model and dockside structures by Triang-Minic.
Olympic is in the background.

Noted ocean liner historian John Maxtone-Graham liner described the Aquitania as Cunard’s Olympic-class liner.   She was longer, heavier, taller, had a deeper draught than her consorts and her rivals.  She was as steady at sea as Olympic, and shared similar amenities: indoor swimming pool (a Cunard first), numerous elevators, luxury suites with private promenades, and posh furniture that was not bolted to the floor!  She was even more splendidly decorated than the other British liners.  Cunard secured Arthur Davis of the noted firm Mewes and Davis of London, designers of HAPAG’s premier ships and many stately country homes to design first class public rooms.  James Miller, Lusitania’s designer, worked alongside Davis on Aquitania, as did other noted firms designing second and third class public rooms.  These public rooms were impressive: Palladian, Empire, Louis XVI, Tudor, and other styles were used in the public rooms and suites.  Outside she had a balanced profile, four evenly spaced, slightly raked funnels, two towering pasts and a handsome counter-stern.  She was truly “the ship beautiful.”

Aquitania photographed in 1925.

Aquitania came to sea in 1914 and sailed on her maiden voyage in June.  She made three round trips before the Great War erupted in Europe.  From August 1914 she was called into His Majesty’s Service carrying troops initially, and later as a hospital ship.  In 1919 she was returned to Cunard and restored to a floating palace once again.  Like Olympic, she was converted from oil to coal and third class reconfigured as tourist class.  Many changes were made to her accommodations over the years to keep pace with passenger demands.  Smoking rooms opened to women, jazz bands played after dinner, and movies shown in Edwardian spaces.  She was a tremendously popular ship throughout the 1920s and early 30s, but like her consorts Mauretania and Berengaria (ex-Imperator) the mean years of the Great Depression proved hard on the great liner.

Aquitania joined Mauretania as Cunard’s premier liners offering cruises to the Mediterranean, Caribbean and weekend trips to New England, but she made many transatlantic crossings as well.  She adapted with the times and kept travelers coming back to her.  By the late 1930s, much of the combined Cunard-White Star fleet had been sold or sent to the breakers to provide work for unemployed laborers and to raise capital for Cunard.  The focus was on a new superliner, Queen Mary to enter service in 1936.  A sister ship, Queen Elizabeth was underway at Clydebank and the plan was to retire Aquitania when she came into service in 1940.

Real photo postcard of Aquitania, ca. 1930.

 Plans change, however.  The world was at war again in 1939 and Aquitania answered the call once again.  This time, she served the entire war as a troopship- first in the Pacific and Indian Ocean (a terrible ordeal for crowded troops in the tropics on a ship without air-conditioning ) and then after the U.S. entered the war on the Atlantic run.  She was the third largest troopship on the seas and served without mishap.  When the war ended, she brought the veterans home once again.  During the last few years she sailed to Halifax rather than New York.  She made her last voyage across the Atlantic in November.  She left Southampton for the last time in February 1950 to the Clyde, a few miles downriver from where she was built.

R.M.S. Aquitania (1914-1950) Built by John Brown & Company Limited, Clydebank, Scotland.  As built in 191: 45,647 gross tons; 901 feet long; 97 feet wide.  Steam turbines geared to quadruple screw. Service speed 23 knots.  2,230 passengers (618 first class, 614 second class, 1,998 third class).