Gallia (ship, 1879)
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The Gallia was an ocean liner put into service in 1879 by the British shipping company Cunard Line , which was used in passenger traffic on the Liverpool - Queenstown - New York route. The ship was sold in 1897 and broken up in France in 1900.
history
The 4809 GRT steamship Gallia was built in Clydebank (Scotland) at the J. & G. Thomson shipyard, the predecessor of John Brown & Company , and was launched on November 12, 1878. The 131.1 meter long and 13.6 meter wide steamer had a chimney, three masts with the rigging of a barque and a single propeller. The top speed was 13 knots (24 km / h). On board there was space for 300 passengers in first and 1200 in third class. Up to 2000 tons of freight could be transported. The Gallia was built on the model of the Abyssinia , which was commissioned in 1870 . She was one of the last Cunard ships built of iron.
On April 5, 1879, the Gallia ran from Liverpool on her maiden voyage to New York via Queenstown. The ship was used on this route for the next few years. On a trip from New York to Liverpool in April 1883, the Canadian soprano and opera singer Emma Albani was on board the Gallia with her husband Ernest Gye .
In June 1885 the Gallia went missing because of a delay of several days at sea. On June 20, 1885, the ship under the command of Captain Michael Murphy cast off with 388 passengers in New York for Queenstown. Many prominent figures were among the passengers, including Samuel S. Cox , the newly appointed US Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire , US Senator Roscoe Conkling, and US Attorney General Benjamin H. Brewster . On June 23, the propeller shaft broke , causing the Gallia to continue sailing under sail. It was not until June 25 that the accident became known through the Adriatic of the White Star Line , which announced that the Gallia would shortly be calling at Queenstown on its own.
On April 20, 1886, the Gallia made its first voyage on the Liverpool – Queenstown – Boston route, on which it remained until September 5, 1895. In December 1892 the Gallia was one of the ships that encountered the distressed steamer Umbria in the North Atlantic . In January 1890 the steamer got into a hurricane that tore off parts of the railing and several davits and smashed five lifeboats. Water seeped into some of the cabins, causing panic among the passengers. In 1895 the Gallia had to be towed by the much smaller Danish passenger steamer Geiser because the propeller shaft had been damaged again.
In 1896, the ship was chartered to the Spanish shipping company Compañía Trasatlántica Española, which she renamed Don Alvaro de Bazan and used as a troop transport in the Cuban War of Independence . From May 21, 1896, the ship under its original name Gallia was back on the transatlantic route Liverpool – Queenstown – Boston. On October 7, 1897, the Gallia made her last crossing on this route because she was sold to the Canadian shipping company Canada Steamship Company (known as Beaver Line ).
On November 20, 1897, the Gallia departed from Liverpool on its first trip for the Beaver Line to Halifax and Saint John . The last crossing on this route began on March 18, 1899. The Gallia was then sold to Allan Line and ran aground on its first voyage for the new owners on May 4, 1899 off Sorel Point near Québec . It was so badly damaged that it would not have been economical to repair. It was therefore sold to France for demolition in 1900 and broken up in Cherbourg .
Web links
- Description of the ship (upper third)
- Key data and a photo of Gallia
- Extract from the history of the ship and two pictures
- Report on Gallia (PDF) in: New York Times , November 26, 1881
- Report on the Gallia (PDF) in: New York Times , June 4, 1885