A model of the passenger liner RMS Mauretania at the Science Museum, South Kensington, 15 November 2008.

One of the great Trans-Atlantic liners, the RMS Mauretania was designed by Cunard’s naval architect Leonard Peskett and built by Swan Hunter, Wallsend, being launched in 1906 and completed in 1907 (as was her sister RMS Lusitania, though she was built by John Brown, Cydebank). The Mauretania was built for the Cunard Line’s Liverpool – New York service and held the Blue Riband of the Atlantic from 1909-29, an amazing length of time when many Trans-Atlantic liners were being built, each a notable advance on its predecessors.

The Mauretania had turbines of 68,000 shp although on her record run these engines developed 76,000 shp and in 1928 they were uprated to 90,000 shp. She had four screws and a designed service speed of 24 kts. The Mauretania measured 790 ft x 88 ft x 33 ft, weighed 31,938 tons gross and was the largest ship in the world from 1907-10 (the Lusitania was not quite as heavy).

On the outbreak of WWI both Mauretania and Lusitania were considered for conversion to Armed Merchant Cruisers but their size and heavy coal consumption meant they were unsuitable. The Mauretania was instead converted to a troopship as HMS Tuberose and served in the Gallipoli Campaign 1915-16 but the Lusitania was sunk by a U-Boat still in civilian use in 1915. The Mauretania was then converted to a hospital ship in 1916 but reverted to a troopship the next year, carrying Canadian and later US troops to Europe. She was returned to Cunard in 1919.