RMS Empress of India (1891)

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Career
SS Empress of India in 1891, the year of her maiden voyage.
Name:	1891-1914: RMS Empress of India 1914-1919 SS Loyalty
Owner:	1891-1914: Canadian Pacific Railway 1914-1919: Maharaja of Gwalior
Port of Registry:	1891-1914: Canada 1914-1919: British Raj Gwalior
Builder:	Naval Construction & Armament Co., Barrow
Laid down:	1890
Launched:	August 30, 1890 by Lady Louise Edgerton
Maiden voyage:	February 8, 1891
Fate:	Scrapped in 1919
General characteristics
Class and type:	Ocean liner
Tonnage:	5,905 tons
Length:	455.7 ft
Beam:	51.2 ft
Propulsion:	Three masts twin screws
Speed:	16 knots
Capacity:	50 1st class passengers 150 2nd class up to 400 steerage passengers

RMS Empress of India was an ocean liner built in 1890-1891^[1] by Naval Construction & Armament Co., Barrow, England for Canadian Pacific Steamships.^[2] This ship would be the first of two CP vessels to be named Empress of India,^[3] and on April 28, 1891, she was the very first of many ships named Empress arriving at Vancouver harbor.^[4] The Empress regularly traversed the trans-Pacific route between the west coast of Canada and the Far East until she was sold to the Maharajah of Gwalior in 1914.^[5]

1 Royal Mail Ship
2 History
3 Notes
4 References
5 External links
6 See also

[edit] Royal Mail Ship

This Empress enjoyed the "RMS", meaning "Royal Mail Ship." This is the ship prefix still in use today by seagoing vessels which carry mail under contract by Royal Mail. Technically, a ship would use the prefix only while contracted to carry mail, and would revert at other times to a standard type designation such as "SS", meaning "Steam Ship" or "Steamer Ship."

In 1891, Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) and the British government reached agreement on a contract for subsidized mail service between Britain and Hong Kong via Canada; and the route began to be serviced by three specially designed Empress liners. The RMS Empress of India and her two sister-ship ocean liners -- the RMS Empress of China and the RMS Empress of Japan -- created a flexible foundation for the CPR trans-Pacific fleet which would ply this route for the next half century.^[5]

[edit] History

Barrow-in-Furness, shipbuilding yards (1890).

The Empress of India was built by Naval Construction & Armament Co. (now absorbed into Vickers Armstrongs) at Barrow, England. The keel was laid in 1890.^[5] She was launched on August 30, 1890 by Lady Louise Egerton, sister of Lord Harrington.^[6] The 5,905-ton vessel had a length of 455.6 feet, and her beam was 51.2 feet. The graceful white-painted, clipper-bowed ship had two buff-colored funnels with a band of black paint at the top, three lightweight schooner-type masts, and an average speed of 16-knots. This Empress and her two sister-ship Empresses were the first vessels in the Pacific to have twin screws with reioprocating engines.^[7] The ocean liner provided accommodation for 50 first-class passengers and for 150 second class passengers. There was also room for 400 third-class passengers.^[5]

The SS Empress of India left Liverpool on February 8, 1891 on her maiden voyage via Suez to Hong Kong and Vancouver. Thereafter, she regularly sailed back and forth along the Hong Kong - Shanghai - Nagasaki - Kobe - Yokohama - Vancouver route.^[5] In the early days of wireless telegraphy, the call sign established for the "Empress of India was "MPI."^[8]

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 trans-Pacific traffic, the ship was sometimes held in quarantine, as when it was discovered that a passenger from Hong Kong to Kobe showed signs of smallpox, and the vessel was held in Yokohama port until the incubation period for the disease had passed.^[9] The cargo holds of the Empress would have been routinely examined in the normal course of harbor-master's business in Hong Kong, Yokohama or Vancouver.^[10]

On August 17, 1903, the Empress of India collided with and sank the Chinese cruiser Huang Tai.^[5]

The vessel was repoted sold on December 19, 1914, to the Geakwar of Baroda (also known as the Maharajah of Gwalior), said to be the richest of the Indian princes).^[11] The former Empress was re-fitted as a hospital ship for Indian troops. On January 19, 1915, the ship was renamed Loyalty. In March 1919, she was sold to Scindia S.N. Company in Bombay (now Mumbai). In February 1923, the ship was sold for scrapping at Bombay.^[5]

CP Empresses of India
In 1921, Canadian Pacific added two German-built vessels to the Empress fleet; and initially, both were confusingly re-named Empress of China. Within months, one of these ships will be re-named the SS Empress of India and the other will be re-named the SS Empress of Australia. A quick explanation will help distinguish these the quite different ships which each sailed with the same name.

The first SS Empress of India was a 5,905-ton vessel, launched in 1890 from Barrow, England. She would be sold in 1914, re-named SS Loyalty in 1915, and scrapped in Bombay in 1919.^[5]
- A CP sister-ship, the first SS Empress of China, was also a Barrow-built, 5,905-ton vessel; but she was launched a few months later, in 1891. She was wrecked on a reef at Tokyo Bay in 1911, and subsequently scrapped in 1912.^[12]

The second SS Empress of India was a 16,992-ton vessel launched in 1907 from Gestemunde, Germany as the SS Prince Freidrich Wilhelm. The ship was purchased in 1921 by Canadian Pacific and then immediately, the ship was re-named Empress of China for only a short time.
- This second SS Empress of China and of India will be re-named several more times -- as the SS Montlaurier in 1922; and as the SS Montnairn in 1925. The ship was scrapped 1929.^[12]

In other words, this vessel from Barrow is the first of two ships named Empress of India.