RMS Mauretania (1906) - Retirement and Scrappage

Retirement and Scrappage

Cunard withdrew Mauretania from service following a final eastward crossing from New York to Southampton in September 1934. The voyage was made at an average speed of 24 knots (44 km/h), equalling the original contractual stipulation for her mail subsidy. She was then laid up at Southampton alongside the former White Star Line flagship Olympic, her twenty-eight years of service at a close.

In May 1935 her furnishings and fittings were put up for auction and on 1 July that year she departed Southampton for the last time to Metal Industries shipbreakers at Rosyth. Some of those fittings wound up in a pub by the same name in Bristol. One of her former captains, the retired commodore Sir Arthur Rostron, captain of the RMS Carpathia during the RMS Titanic rescue, came to see her on her final departure from Southampton. Rostron refused to go aboard Mauretania before her final journey, stating that he preferred to remember the ship as she was when he commanded her.

En route to Rosyth Mauretania stopped at her birthplace the Tyne for half an hour, where she drew crowds of sightseers and was boarded by the Lord Mayor of Newcastle. The mayor bade her farewell from the people of Newcastle, and her last captain, A.T. Brown, then resumed his course for Rosyth. With masts cut down to fit, the ship passed under the Forth Bridge and was delivered to the breakers.

In order to prevent a rival company using the name and to keep it available for a future Cunard White Star liner, arrangements were made for the Red Funnel Paddle Steamer Queen to be renamed Mauretania in the interim.

The demise of the beloved Mauretania was protested by many of her loyal passengers, including President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who wrote a private letter arguing against the scrapping.

Some of the furnishings from the Mauretania were installed in a bar/restaurant complex in Bristol called the Mauretania Bar (now Java Bristol), situated in Park Street. The lounge bar was panelled with mahogany, which came from her first class library. The neon sign on the south wall still advertises the "Mauretania," and her bow lettering was used above the entrance. Additionally, fittings from the first class reading-writing room have been incorporated into the board room at Pinewood Studios, west of London. The oak panelled interior of The Oak Bar in Dame Street in Dublin, Ireland was originally fitted on the Mauretania. Maple panelling from one of the staterooms can be found in the Nont Sarahs Pub, New Hey Road (A640), Scammonden, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire. The original builder's model of Mauretania is displayed at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C..

The ship's bell is currently located in the reception of the Lloyds Registry of Shipping, Fenchurch Street, London. Annually for Remembrance Day, Lloyds Register observe two minutes of silence and lay a wreath at its base in honour of servicemen and women.

A large builder's model, showing of Mauretania in her white cruising paint scheme, is displayed in the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic's Cunard exhibit in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Originally a model of Lusitania, it was converted to represent Mauretania after Lusitania was torpedoed.

Another large builders model is situated aboard the Queen Elizabeth 2 ocean liner, currently located in Dubai. This model was also originally Lusitania, and like the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic's model, it was converted into Mauretania after Lusitania sunk. When inspecting the model, one can tell it was Lusitania by examining the bridge front, which is on the boat deck level (Mauretania`s Bridge was one deck higher).

The Mauretania is remembered in a song "The fireman's lament" or "Firing the Mauretania", collected by Redd Sullivan. The song starts "In 19 hundred and 24, I … got a job on the Mauretania"; but then goes on to say "shovelling coal from morn till night" (not possible in 1924 as she was oil-fired by then). the number of "fires" is said to be 64. Hughie Jones also recorded the song but the last verse of Hughie's version calls upon all you "trimmers" whereas Redd Sullivan's version calls upon "stokers".

The Clive Cussler Isaac Bell novel The Thief is set aboard the Mauretania. A terrible fire engulfs the forward storage area but it is brought under control.