RMS Franconia (1910)

Between 1900 and 1903, Cunard had replaced the ships that served its Liverpool to Boston passenger service, , Cephalonia and Pavonia, with , and . This more than doubled the gross register tonnage on the service. In 1903 Cunard became the official agents for Hungarian emigration, and Carpathia was placed on that route from Trieste and Fiume to New York. Cunard bought two new ships, and to support Carpathia on the route. With only Ivernia and Saxonia regularly serving Boston for Cunard, the company ordered two larger ships, Franconia and Laconia, for the route. With the increased capacity on their regular summer route across the Atlantic, all four ships, including Franconia, would be able to serve the Mediterranean themselves offering winter cruises and supplementing the emigrant trade. Slavonia was wrecked in 1909, so also contributed to the Mediterranean emigrant sailings more frequently. ==Design and construction==

Conception to launch Construction began as the keel was first laid down on 8 October 1909 in the covered slipways of the shipbuilder's East Yard, following a design by Leonard Peskett, Cunard's chief naval architect. Deck plan From top to bottom: Lifeboats At launch, Franconia was equipped with 16 clinker-built lifeboats, with 12 on the Boat Deck, and four lower down to the rear on the Promenade Deck. As was common at the time, and is now part of the regulations, lifeboats were given even numbers on the port side and odd numbers on the starboard side. They were numbered from 1 & 2 forward to 15 & 16 aft. Each boat was about long This meant Franconia had space for about 960 people in her boats, around a third of her maximum passenger capacity. In 1912, following the sinking of the Titanic, the inquiry recommended large ocean liners provide lifeboats based on the number of passengers they carried instead of their GRT. This resulted in Franconia being given two additional wooden lifeboats on her forward Bridge Deck with new davits, bringing the total number under davits to 18. She also had a further 18 'collapsible' or 'decked' boats added, which were wooden or cork-bottomed boats with collapsible canvas sides, and these were mostly kept under the clinker-built boats. Boats 17 & 18 at the far rear of the Promenade Deck were placed onto a new raised platform above the deck, which also accommodated six of the collapsible boats. Engines and propulsion The engines were designed and built by Wallsend Slipway & Engineering Company, neighbours and frequent collaborators with Swan, Hunter and Wigham Richardson on Tyneside, and managed by Andrew Laing. She had two Marconi operators and backup equipment on board, allowing radio service at all times using two shifts for safety and passenger convenience. Three electrical dynamos installed behind the engine room driven by dedicated high-speed steam engines, supplying 400kW of electrical capacity. Nearly all the lighting on the ship was electric. This equipment was supplied by W.C. Martin & Co, who also provided electrical equipment for Mauretania. ==Operational history==

Commercial service Franconia undertook her maiden transatlantic voyage on 25 February 1911 from Liverpool to New York City under the command of Charles Appleton Smith. Her first voyage on her regular summer route from Liverpool to Boston began on 18 April 1911, after her return from New York and the Mediterranean. On 16 April 1912, on departing Boston, Franconia was ordered to take a more southerly route across the Atlantic to Liverpool, in order to avoid icebergs, due to the sinking of the Titanic the day before. The following day, Franconia made contact with RMS Carpathia by wireless radio. Carpathia was carrying survivors from the tragedy back to New York. A passenger on Franconia, Winfield Thomson, who was a journalist from the Boston Globe, was the first to report a nearly accurate number of survivors to shore. He reported 705 survivors. This number was met with disbelief, with newspapers like The Standard reasoning this figure must not include surviving crew. In the summer of 1912, Franconia was noted to be in frequent wireless radio contact with Success, a former prison ship turned museum ship that was attempting an Atlantic crossing. Franconia passed her at least five times over the 66 days that Success had been at sea, and forwarded wireless messages to New York on behalf of Success for provisions that were running low on the old sailing ship. Franconia halted in August 1913 at the site of the Titanics sinking, to enable the family of Titanic passenger and newspaper editor W. T. Stead to have a wreath laid at the location he was lost. She completed her final crossing from Liverpool to Boston on 22 September 1914, by which time she had carried 52,695 passengers westbound to Boston. Her final crossing from Liverpool to New York was completed on 1 February 1915 at which point she had carried 18,505 passengers to New York (7,096 on her Liverpool service, 11,409 on her Mediterranean service) for a combined total of 71,200 westbound passengers. Additionally, between Cunard's New York and Boston services, Franconia also carried 26,328 passengers eastbound to Liverpool. World War I and sinking While still in commercial service, Franconia was contracted by the British Admiralty to perform a troopship journey to Canada. She set out for New York on 16 September 1914 with regular commercial passengers for Cunard, but instead of returning across the Atlantic, she headed north. Here, Franconia would pick up members of the Canadian First Contingent of soldiers trained at Valcartier alongside her running mates Ivernia, Saxonia, and Laconia, and a number of other British and Canadian ocean liners. The ships of this convoy first travelled to Montreal, Quebec, to be fitted out for carrying troops. They then proceeded to Quebec City to embark soldiers from Valcartier. Finally, the 31 merchant vessels gathered in Gaspé Bay, to form three columns for their journey across the Atlantic. They were escorted across the open ocean by and , as well as the cruisers , , , and another of Franconias Boston running-mates, , which had been converted into an armed merchant cruiser. The 12th Cruiser Squadron provided an additional escort during the crossing, with HMS Charybdis, , , and . The reinforcement was completed with the addition of . Finally, for the last stretch of the crossing, the battlecruiser . She had evaded a torpedo from a torpedo boat of the Ottoman Navy and transported headquarters staff early in her war service. In June 1915, a seaman from Franconia was sentenced to three months imprisonment with hard labour for failing to join the ship. He expressed sorrow and claimed he was drunk. Around 30 men in total failed to join, which delayed her departure carrying troops to the Dardanelles, prompting the Admiralty to make an example of the seamen. On 4 October 1916, while heading for Salonika, she was torpedoed and sunk by the German U-boat east of Malta. She was not carrying any troops but out of her 314 crew members, 12 died. The others were saved by the hospital ship . The surviving crew returned home to Liverpool on 24 October. ==Legacy==

Cunard Line named two further ships Franconia in the decades after the sinking of the original ship. The second was launched in 1922, and was a -class ship built by John Brown & Co in Clydebank. The third Franconia was originally launched in 1954 as RMS Ivernia. This Ivernia (the second Cunard ship of this name, the first being Ivernia of 1899) was substantially refit in 1963, and so significant were the changes she was renamed Franconia. ==References==