Hi again Ellen,
There are a number of items in museums that we can discuss right here, models included. Pardon any error - I am under another deadline here.
To name just a few, The Tyne and Wear Museums at Newcastle-on-Tyne have an incredible collection of fittings and articles from Mauretania, from a 1907 1:48 scale builder’s model of Mauretania lent by Messrs. Swan to the Engine Logs from the final voyage to Rosyth. One particularly interesting item is the Fog Triangle. Made of 1-½ inch thick steel, it was struck at regular intervals when running through fog. Also in the collection is a white marble statue entitled “Columbia” from the First Class Lounge, now on display after recently undergoing restoration, and a beautiful electric lamp with a polished wooden base, topped by a scalloped glass shade engraved with a Neptune motif in reference to the yards from where she launched. From the starting platform is the 33-½ inch engraved brass builder’s nameplate you mentioned that reads “THE WALLSEND SLIPWAY AND ENGINEERING CO. LTD. UNDER LICENCE FROM THE HON. C.G. PARSONS AND THE PARSONS MARINE STEAM TURBINE CO. LTD. ENGINES NO 601 1907 NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE.” Also from the engine room and starting platform is the turbine hand wheel control from the main engine, the turbine control frame with five levers for drains and sluice valves, the revolutions gauge, nine various oil pressure gauges and two engine room telegraphs. There are also sections of both the high and low-pressure turbine blades as well as a section of her sheerstrake. Additionally, there is the 2-½ foot high brass “E” recovered from her bow that is on your card and three links from her anchor chains, each weighing 170 lbs, and a lifering among still more items.
The National Museum of Science and Industry, at South Kensington, has in its collections a 1:64 scale 1906 builders model built and lent by Messrs. Swan, a sectional model amidships and in the Maritime Engine Gallery a 1:27 scale bronze model of one of her four-bladed propellers. A 1:48 scale half-block plating model, also built by Messrs. Swan and used during the construction of the ship, was in the collection until 1996.
The model aboard the QE2 we discussed yesterday is just under 1:48 scale. In addition to the alterations mentioned to that model (some reflecting changes made to the Mauretania post-war), the bow is largely that of the Lusitania with the arched boom crutch, while her bow bulwarks curiously remain curved. It is known the Mauretania's bow bulwarks were cut straight down during 1918/19, when she was armed with four bag loaded bow guns, and replaced with rope. This is a good way to help date wartime photographs that is often overlooked leading to errors in chronology.
Bob Blake, American Head of Cunard, presented a large 18 foot model of Mauretania to FDR, curiously, crudely and incorrectly repainted white with green antifouling paint at some point. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt long admired the Mauretania and mourned her passage into history, donating his entire collection to the Smithsonian on July 2 during her final voyage. His personal collection included the large model, over one hundred photographs of the vessel and a brass oil lamp from her “main lobby”. Roosevelt wrote that he “…found it hard on July 2, 1935 when we read that the MAURETANIA was on her way to the ship-breakers to be turned into shot and shell for the next war” (this is unsubstantiated). Once displayed aboard the Queen Mary, this model, apparently carved from a single piece of mahogany, is now back in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington if memory serves. It continues to occasionally inspire the odd mistaken green-hulled reference.
There is also a model in storage in Toronto which may be the 1911 Glasgow Great Exhibition model and still another at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, originally in Winchester Cathedral which you mentioned at the start of this thread.
Best wishes,
Eric
