Still in existence are models of the RMS Royal George and the RMS Royal Edward. They survive in locations far from Avonmouth, and far distant from each other!
The Royal George model is in the U.S.A.
In 2007 I found Neal Paddison’s Portland Model Power Boat Association ‘Showcase’ page. Thank you, Neal, for allowing reproduction of these photos.
When the Royal George model was found it had the Cunard livery and the name Carmania, but traces of the CNR colours could be seen. According to Neal it is 11ft long. The model was in a glass display cabinet but was taken out as the owner wanted the case for a doll collection. It was stored in a carport for years, exposed to the elements but has found a home, appropriately, in a marine insurance company.
The Royal Edward model is in Spain.
Also in 2007 I found the site of The Canadian Northern Society. Its newsletter, The Canora Chronicle, had this intriguing information:
“I took photos of this beautiful twelve-foot-long ship model last December (2006) in the Barcelona Maritime Museum. This museum was full of ship models, but it is curious why they have this particular one, which to my knowledge has no connection with Spain.” Don Heron.
http://www.canadiannorthern.ca/chronicle.html See Vol.20 No. 4
In May 2009 David Saunders, a member of the Gallipoli Association, visited Barcelona and was surprised to find the model. He took photos which he generously forwarded to me.
I contacted the Museu Marítim de Barcelona and had a marvellous response from Sílvia Dahl (Arxiu Fotogràfic, Centre de Documentació Marítima, Direcció Tècnica, Museu Marítim de Barcelona). Here are the photos she kindly sent:
An interesting point – the port of registry on the stern is London – the Royal Edward was registered at Toronto. This may be a survival of her days as SS Cairo, built by the Fairfield Company Ltd, Glasgow for the British owned Egyptian Mail Company. Thus the models show a record of the changing ownership of the vessels: the original C.N.R livery on the Royal George, and the original port of Registry on the Royal Edward.
How did the models finally, one hopes, find safe harbour?
When the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company built the Cairo and the Heliopolis, as usual they also produced display or exhibition models as well as the plain models made during the designing stage. The models were available to the client and were usually handed over at the same time as the full-size ship or retained by Fairfield for their own collection. Fairfield made most of their models themselves at this period – they maintained their own model making workshop which is illustrated in their company history “The Building of the Ship”.
Not only is this picture intrinsically interesting – the large model in the foreground is believed to be the Cairo!!
I am grateful to Emily Malcolm, Curator, Transport & Technology, Riverside Museum, Glasgow, for supplying this photo. She says:
“I think that the model of Royal Edward in the Barcelona Museum is the model in the foreground in this image (as “Cairo”). We have many Fairfield Models in our collection and the look and colours are the same.”
L’Exposition Internationale & Maritime de 1907 at Bordeaux was specially staged to demonstrate the achievements of all maritime nations since the introduction of steam.
http://invisiblebordeaux.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/1907-international-maritime-fair-when.html
Interior of the Grand Pavilion.
THE FAIRFIELD SHIPBUILDING ENGINEERING CO. LTD. GLASGOW.
Its stand is behind Vickers, Son & Maxim Ltd.
Interior of the Grand Pavilion.
THE FAIRFIELD SHIPBUILDING ENGINEERING CO. LTD. GLASGOW.
A better view of the FAIRFIELD stand – and there is the model of SS Heliopolis in front on the left.
The pictures were sent me by sharp-eyed David Saint-Pierre, maritime historian Quebec City, Canada.
We can place the Royal Edward model in Canada after the C.N.R. bought the Egyptian Mail S.S. Co. ships.
The Winnipeg Tribune 3rd August 1911 has a full page advertisement for the C.N.R. There are the usual claims for speed and comfort in elegant surroundings, especially for the Company’s flagship the Royal Edward. An added inducement is the invitation to see the the twelve-foot model on view in the New Canadian Northern Station, Main Street, Winnipeg. Here the Canadian Northern SS Co Ltd had its main booking office.
How it came to Barcelona is as yet unknown.
In his article on finding the model in Barcelona, David Saunders says:
“How and why was such a model here were immediate questions, and subsequently in answer to my enquiries I was able to discover that the Museum received the model in 1931 from the engineer Luis Jacoby….”
The Gallipolian No.121. Winter 2009 p. 60.
I have not found information on the engineer Luis Jacoby and would welcome any.
Presumably the Royal George model was used for a similar purpose by the C.N.R.
After the collapse of the C.N.R. SS Company, Cunard bought the Royal George in 1916 and she continued as a troopship to the end of WW1. She resumed Atlantic crossings after the war under Cunard sailing to New York via Halifax from Liverpool and from Southampton.
Did the Cunard company have the Royal George model painted in their livery? And did they display it in New York?
Who named it Carmania and why?
I have my own model of the Royal George – 1/1250 scale.
Also available as a Cunarder.
Available from: Navis Neptun.
Continuing the story of models
The Australian National Maritime Museum in its exhibition War at Sea – The Navy in WWI has waterline models of WWI ships with dazzle-paint.
There are three models of the Royal Edward, before, and after as she might have appeared if she had been dazzle-painted. According to a report in the Western Daily Press of Bristol published Thursday 20 August 1914 on the arrival of French Reservists in transit to France:
Even those people who are most accustomed to witnessing the departure from and arrival at Avonmouth of the Canadian Northern liners had to look twice yesterday morning at the sombre-looking ship which shortly before seven o’clock was making her way up the Kingroad to the entrance lock. The usual bright and attractive lines of the steamer, and her striking paintwork had disappeared beneath a profuse coating of dark blue wash. The Royal Edward certainly had “the Blues” from top to bottom, and her transformation must have rendered her particularly invisible at sea from any considerable distance.
But the C.N.R. liners were was still recognisable both as themselves and as magnificent ships.
When, on her first trip to Gallipoli, the Royal George entered Alexandria harbour, the dock labourers recognised her lines and cheered the return of the vessel they had known as the S.S. Heliopolis.
When, on the Royal Edward’s last voyage, she was seen by her nemesis, Commander von Heimberg of the UB14, her long promenade decks and high masts betrayed her as a great prize.
The u-boat which sank the Royal Edward was a UB 1 class of submarine.
Tony Lovell, one of the Editors-in-Chief of The Dreadnought Project, has allowed me to link to their page UB I Type Coastal U-Boats UB 1 through UB 17, 1915.
A model of the smaller type of u-boats built for coastal operations in the North Sea and the Mediterranean.
Tom Koehl has taken more photos of his model of the UB1. The UB1 was in the Flanders Flotilla, operating in the North Sea and the English Channel. The UB 14 based in the Mediterranean was in the Pola Flotilla.
Tom explains the difference in structure:
UB14 was an AG Weser-built boat and differed in some superficial ways from the UB1, which is one of the first Germaniawerft-built boats. The UB1 had large limber holes (drain holes), a slightly taller conning tower, and a more angular deck “break” aft rather than the more gentle curve of the Weser boats. Inside, the boats were nearly identical. I probably should have put a tripod machine gun mount or light deck gun forward of the tower but I was modelling UB-1 which was commissioned into the Austro-Hungarian Navy as U-10. It had a sheet metal spray shield added above the conning tower to provide protection to the helmsman, conning officer and lookouts when surfaced. In shape it resembled the tower of the WWII era UB boats used for training.
The Commander of the UB1 was Oberleutnant zur See Franz Wäger.
Born: 7 Jan. 1888 Died: 4 Aug. 1916 in the Otranto Straits.
Franz Wäger and Heino von Heimburg were in the Navy’s cadet class of April 1907. (Wikipedia)
Model of the UB1 type
Pete’s UB1 Submarine
UB1 is small coastal WW1 submarine, to dive the boat uses a piston drive tank,and uses four channel radio, the model is around 42″ long and is a semi kit.
