the 'Empress of Ireland' - a largely forgotten tragedy

When the RMS Empress of Ireland sank as a result of a collision with a Norwegian ship in the St Lawrence River in the early morning of 29 May 1914, the death toll of 1,012 made it the world's third worst maritime disaster at that time, after the Sultana and the Titanic.  However, like the Sultana it has been largely forgotten (except in Canada), while the Titanic is now the most famous shipwreck of all.

Empress of Ireland was an ocean liner built in 1905-1906 by Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering at Govan on the Clyde in Scotland for Canadian Pacific Steamships (CP). The Empress of Ireland departed Quebec City for Liverpool, England, at 16:30 local time on 29 May 1914 with 1,477 passengers and crew. Henry George Kendall had just been promoted to captain of the Empress at the beginning of the month; and it was his first trip down the Saint Lawrence River in command of the vessel. Early the next morning the ship was proceeding down the channel near Pointe-au-Père, Quebec (the eastern district of the town of Rimouski) in heavy fog. At 2:00 am local time, the Norwegian collier Storstad crashed into the side of the Empress of Ireland. The Storstad did not sink, but Empress of Ireland, with severe damage to her starboard side, rapidly shipping water, rolled over and sank within 14 minutes, claiming 1,012 passengers and crewmen.  The rapdity of the sinking raised questions, explained by the location of the damage, failure to close her watertight doors, and that nearly all portholes were open.

There were only 465 survivors, out of which only four were children (the other 134 children were lost) and 42 were women (the other 279 women were lost). Among the dead were the English dramatist and novelist Laurence Irving. Among the survivors, Frank “Lucky” Tower is improbably said to have been one of the few crewmen who survived this shipwreck and the sinking of the Titanic and the sinking of the Lusitania.

Tonnage:	14,191 grt
Length:	570 ft (170 metres)
Beam:	65 ft 7.2 in (20 metres)
Propulsion:	2 × Quadruple expansion steam engines 2 × screws
Speed:	20 knots (23 mph; 37 km/h)
Capacity:	1,580