Cunard Family Connections

[Seventyishtraveller]

14 hours ago, Pushpit said:

 

A funny thing: my grandfather worked as an Assistant Steward for White Star Line's RMS Great Britain 1906-1907. Left the line in Quebec City and joined the Grand Trunk Railway. I remember going down to the port of Montreal as a little girl to wave off various relatives sailing across to visit our relatives in the UK. And now I travel that way too, although much more luxuriously 😉

[Pushpit]

6 hours ago, Seventyishtraveller said:

A funny thing: my grandfather worked as an Assistant Steward for White Star Line's RMS Great Britain 1906-1907. Left the line in Quebec City and joined the Grand Trunk Railway. I remember going down to the port of Montreal as a little girl to wave off various relatives sailing across to visit our relatives in the UK. And now I travel that way too, although much more luxuriously 😉

I have a double connection for you then. I am very distantly related to the two families that ran White Star, hence my badge, and hold some family memorabilia including a White Star share certificate. The village school I went to as a kid, which I can see right now - it's a few miles down the valley and painted white so it sticks out - was the same school that Sir Joseph Hickson went to as a child and learned to read, write and do sums. He went on to become the charismatic and entrepreneurial boss of GTR who built the hugely pivotal railway originally between Toronto and Montréal along the St. Lawrence River. My school had a 200 year celebration a few years back and we were trying to work out the most famous pupil - there weren't many! But Sir Joseph was the only one to earn (as opposed to inherit) a title.

[Seventyishtraveller]

6 hours ago, Pushpit said:

I have a double connection for you then. I am very distantly related to the two families that ran White Star, hence my badge, and hold some family memorabilia including a White Star share certificate. The village school I went to as a kid, which I can see right now - it's a few miles down the valley and painted white so it sticks out - was the same school that Sir Joseph Hickson went to as a child and learned to read, write and do sums. He went on to become the charismatic and entrepreneurial boss of GTR who built the hugely pivotal railway originally between Toronto and Montréal along the St. Lawrence River. My school had a 200 year celebration a few years back and we were trying to work out the most famous pupil - there weren't many! But Sir Joseph was the only one to earn (as opposed to inherit) a title.

Oh my! What terrific family history 🙂 My grandfather grew up in the cotton mill town of Hoddlesden in Lancashire. He was working in the mills at age 10 but at age 16 he lied about his age and joined the Army, went to South Africa to fight in the Boer War. Which turned him into a pacifist. Came home and, still restless, joined the White Star Line in Liverpool. He'd had very little schooling except what he received in the military but he was very good with figures so I think that's how he became an accounting clerk for the GTR, transferred from Quebec City to Joliette, to Toronto and ended up back in Montreal. It helped that he spoke French as his mother had been a Swiss governess for a wealthy family in Liverpool before she married his father, the gardener. I grew up in Montreal, went to work as a secretary at McGill and then headed over to England when we early 20ish folk were mostly traveling, back to Toronto and so on. I love family history as most of my family had died by the time I was 16; digital genealogy and DNA has been such a boon!

Oh, by the way, I've just received confirmation that we've been upgraded to Cabin 5059, midships balcony. So, so pleased!!

[Clewgarnet]

If we're talking family history and ocean liners, I owe my very existence to Cunard!

 

My great-grandfather was head chef on the original Queens in their heyday. He started his career as 3rd chef on the Campania, and worked his way up via, among others, Carmania, Caronia, Franconia, and Carinthia (so I always feel a faint glow of family pride in the Carinthia Lounge).

 

While in New York one time, he got chatting to the man who had the contract for pest control on the Cunard liners. "My niece is about to move to Liverpool," said the pest control man. "Tell her to look up my family," said my great-grandfather. And that's how my grandparents met.

 

My great-grandfather's brother was a first class dining steward, mostly on Berengaria, but also on Lusitania, where he managed to survive the sinking and rescue three other people. Sadly, this left him with permanent lung damage. When his health was too bad for the strenuous work as a waiter, Cunard found him work on board as a telephone operator and lift attendant.

[exlondoner]

5 minutes ago, Clewgarnet said:

If we're talking family history and ocean liners, I owe my very existence to Cunard!

 

My great-grandfather was head chef on the original Queens in their heyday. He started his career as 3rd chef on the Campania, and worked his way up via, among others, Carmania, Caronia, Franconia, and Carinthia (so I always feel a faint glow of family pride in the Carinthia Lounge).

 

While in New York one time, he got chatting to the man who had the contract for pest control on the Cunard liners. "My niece is about to move to Liverpool," said the pest control man. "Tell her to look up my family," said my great-grandfather. And that's how my grandparents met.

 

My great-grandfather's brother was a first class dining steward, mostly on Berengaria, but also on Lusitania, where he managed to survive the sinking and rescue three other people. Sadly, this left him with permanent lung damage. When his health was too bad for the strenuous work as a waiter, Cunard found him work on board as a telephone operator and lift attendant.

Wow, just wow.

[Clewgarnet]

1 minute ago, exlondoner said:

Wow, just wow.

That's why I should be upgraded to Diamond status immediately!

[Host Hattie]

I've moved these wonderful stories to a thread of their own. 

[exlondoner]

11 minutes ago, Clewgarnet said:

That's why I should be upgraded to Diamond status immediately!

And a Q1 on all voyages.

[Seventyishtraveller]

2 hours ago, Clewgarnet said:

If we're talking family history and ocean liners, I owe my very existence to Cunard!

 

My great-grandfather was head chef on the original Queens in their heyday. He started his career as 3rd chef on the Campania, and worked his way up via, among others, Carmania, Caronia, Franconia, and Carinthia (so I always feel a faint glow of family pride in the Carinthia Lounge).

 

While in New York one time, he got chatting to the man who had the contract for pest control on the Cunard liners. "My niece is about to move to Liverpool," said the pest control man. "Tell her to look up my family," said my great-grandfather. And that's how my grandparents met.

 

My great-grandfather's brother was a first class dining steward, mostly on Berengaria, but also on Lusitania, where he managed to survive the sinking and rescue three other people. Sadly, this left him with permanent lung damage. When his health was too bad for the strenuous work as a waiter, Cunard found him work on board as a telephone operator and lift attendant.

That's amazing! My grandfather worked first as boot boy, then as an assistant steward on RMS Empress of Britain 1906-1907 which I guess was actually part of the Canadian Pacific Railway company rather than the White Star. Her sister ship was the Empress of Ireland which collided with a collier in the St Lawrence River in 1914 and sank; over 1000 lives were lost. But Grandfather was well off ships at that time although the voyaging family story shifts to both my grandmothers.

 

One grandmother immigrated to Canada from Ireland. I haven't been able to find definitely which voyage she arrived on as her name was fairly common, Mary Kate Reilly. But once she married my grandfather in 1910, she became Torrance and that was less common so I was able to find a record of her voyage to and from Ireland on the Pretorian, which was at first part of the Allan steamship line, in 1912 with my only a few months old mother. It amazes me to think that she traveled, alone, with an infant by choice back to Ireland to see her mother and to also pick up her youngest sister, whom she brought back to Canada with her.  Ugh 1912, with a baby! That grandmother made one more voyage many years later, in 1957, on the Carinthia to once again visit her sisters who lived in England and then return to Canada. I remember seeing her off in Montreal and actually seeing her very small cabin--those were the days, when you could be on board as a visitor until they called "All ashore who's going ashore...." 

 

My other grandmother came to Canada from Scotland to marry my grandfather in 1907; she traveled on the Ionian which was another ship that belonged to the Allan steamship line. Then in 1919, pregnant with my aunt and with my 8 year old father in tow, she decided she wanted to go "hame" to her mother in Dundee. They sailed on the Minnedosa, which belonged to the Canadian Pacific steamship lines. Dad said Grandma was so seasick (and probably morning sick too) that she stayed in the cabin the whole voyage and he was left to ramble around the ship, being well looked after by the sailors who showed him all the engines and how the machinery worked, which left him with a lifelong love of all heavy machinery. When they arrived in Liverpool, Dad said there were so many soldiers who were traveling back from France after WW1 had ended that Grandma became overwhelmed. He remembered a kind young soldier taking her by the arm at the dock and saying "Now, it's alright mum, you just sit here and have a cup of tea and I'll see that you get your tickets for the train to Scotland."

 

A year after arriving, Grandma had had enough of Scotland and decided to go back to Canada, just as my grandfather was getting ready to move back to Scotland, having saved up enough money. So back my dad and my grandmother traveled, this time with my months-old aunt, on the Sicilian, again an Allan line ship. 

[*Miss G*]

Some interesting and lovely stories, everyone. Thank you. 🥰 Thanks, also, for the new thread, @Host Hattie! (Why do I always want to call you Aunt Hattie? 😂)

 

As some may already have read, my father’s first job was at Cunard Headquarters, in Liverpool. He moved on to become an engineer on their ships. Whenever his ship came in, we would take the ferry over to Liverpool to meet him. 

 

Those were exciting times. He’d be gone months at a time and always brought back presents from faraway places. One time, he brought a number of pieces of hand-carved wooden furniture from India. There were two coffee tables; a sewing chest, and a tall carved pole stand with two smaller ones, all of which he turned into lamps.

 

He eventually left Cunard, as Chief Engineer, and headed across the ocean to Canada. Four months later, my Mother, my sister, myself, and my brother left England to join him; all as Landed Immigrants.

 

We flew from Manchester on a BOAC Britannia Turboprop and stopped in Greenland, for refueling, before continuing on to Toronto. Back then, we always wore our best clothes, including little white gloves! Also, back then, Toronto Pearson was known as Malton Airport, from land purchased from a number of farmers. It definitely used to look like we had landed in farm country! The terminal was a couple of stories high with the top floor (3rd) a huge viewing platform.

 

By sheer coincidence, my mother recently found my original Junior Jet Club log book, which I had received, along with a pin, on the first flight over. We went to the cockpit where the Captain filled in all the flight details and signed the form. Since the log book is still on my kitchen island, I have included pics!

 

COVER:

 

 

FIRST PAGE:

 

 

SECOND PAGE:

 

 

FLIGHT DETAIL PAGE:

3,601 Statute Miles on that first trip!

 

 

PICS OF THEIR FLEET:

 

 

 

LAST PAGE:

 

 

 

PIN:

 

 

My parents still live in the same house my father had purchased for our arrival, and they still have the furniture from India! 

 

 

Edited July 15 by *Miss G*